Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 9.pdf/253

 remember—very many things you may remember. Things that happened at Frognal—dear romantic walks through the Sunday summer evenings, practically you two alone, you in your adolescent silk hat and your nice gentlemanly gloves Perhaps that did not happen here! And she may have other memories—of things—that down there haven't happened. You noted her costume. She wasn't by any chance one of the samurai?"

He answers, with a note of satisfaction, "No! She wore a womanly dress of greyish green."

"Probably under the Lesser Rule."

"I don't know what you mean by the Lesser Rule. She wasn't one of the samurai."

"And, after all, you know—I keep on reminding you, and you keep on losing touch with the fact that this world contains your double."

He pales, and his countenance is disturbed. Thank Heaven, I've touched him at last!

"This world contains your double. But, conceivably, everything may be different here. The whole romantic story may have run a different course. It was as it was in our world by the accidents of custom and proximity. Adolescence is a defenceless plastic period. You are a man to form great affections,—noble, great affections. You might have met anyone almost at that season and formed the same attachment."

For a time he is perplexed and troubled by this suggestion.

"No," he says, a little doubtfully. "No. It was herself." Then, emphatically, "No!"