Apart from personal hopes or designs, the presence, or even the proximity, of a beautiful woman is a cheerful thing: it gives a man the sense of happiness, like sunshine or sparkling water; these are not his either, but he can look at and enjoy them; he smiles back at the world in thanks for its bountiful favours. Never had life seemed better to Dieppe than when he awoke the next morning; yet there was guilt on his conscience – he ought not to have opened that door. But the guilt became parent to a new pleasure and gave him the one thing needful to perfection of existence – a pretty little secret of his own, and this time one that he was minded to keep.
"To think," he exclaimed, pointing a scornful finger at the village across the river, "that but for my luck I might be at the inn! Heaven above us, I might even have been leaving this enchanting spot!" He looked down at the stream. A man was fishing there, a tall, well-made fellow in knickerbockers and a soft felt hat of the sort sometimes called Tyrolean. "Good luck to you, my boy!" nodded the happy and therefore charitable Captain.
.....
Evening was now falling fast; the fisherman was no longer to be seen; perfect peace reigned over the landscape. Dieppe yawned; perfect peace was with him a synonym for intolerable dulness.
"Permit me, my dear friend," said a voice behind him, "to read you a little poem which I have beguiled my leisure by composing."
