It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our terms of acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to view him in the crowd--myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I withdrew. But he was looking out for me, or rather for her who had been with me: therefore he descended the steps, and followed me down the alley.
"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew her," said he.
"Yes: I know her."
"Intimately?"
"Quite as intimately as I wish."
"What have you done with her now?"
"Am I her keeper?" I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, "I have shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she escaped out of my hands and ran away."
"Would you favour me," he asked, "by watching over her this one evening, and observing that she does nothing imprudent--does not, for instance, run out into the night-air immediately after dancing?"
"I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she likes her own way too well to submit readily to control."
"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell you how."
"And why me?"
"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
"But she has not the slightest idea how much I am her friend. That is precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she ever speak of me to you?"
"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I must add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered that you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within that brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the person, under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that she is the magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her sake you venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by rivals."
"You know all?"
"I know so much."
"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society. Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore' she often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her remarks? I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented with uncertainty as to how I stand with her."