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And so, unless you insist, we will keep the name: it has taught us already something about her.

What is she like—to look at?

She is shadowy as yet, but I think you said, and I agreed, that she has soft, shining eyes—shining, not sparkling—and is wonderfully light on her feet. I think, what with the sway of her pretty figure, and her quick white hands that are the only restless things about her, she has, though she is not a little woman, a fugitive, thistledown air, that makes you want to dance with her. Yet she cannot dance: never troubled to learn. Dancing bored Justin. Her dancing days were over before she learned that it is not always wise to humour Justin.

Thus far Laura Valentine. The name grows on you, doesn’t it? That is why you are such a perfect Collaborator. I can always persuade you into agreeing with me.

But ‘Justin’—less easy to conceive, eh? Yet, knowing Laura as little even as we do, he should be obvious—prose to her verse: she, the glove for his hand: the red and white halves of an apple. Laura implies Justin as day implies night, winter—summer, sunshine—rain. We should be justified in leaving them, at the end, wooed and wedded and a’, in a very rainbow of happiness. And yet—I doubt.