I followed her example; but when a little later on I glanced across in her direction, I found that her eyes were fixed upon me, and that her novel lay in her lap.
"My book is so stupid," she said apologetically.

"I find, Mr.
Ducaine," she added with sudden earnestness, "the elements of a much stranger story closer at hand." "That," I remarked, laying down my own book, and looking steadily across at her, "sounds enigmatic." "I think," she said, "that I am very foolish to talk to you at all about it.

If you know who I am, you are probably armed against me at all points.

You will weigh and measure my words, you will say to yourself, 'Lies, lies, lies!' You will not believe in me or anything I say.

And, again, if you do not know, the story is too painful a one for me to tell." "Then let us both avoid it," I said, reaching again for my paper.