242 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



there was another presence in the place, and neither 

 the concierge, nor the jemme de menage, nor the 

 cavalier, nor the boy, nor my friend the owner of 

 the apartment who had moved across the Seine 

 to live in the Rue de Val-de-Grace, would explain. 

 It is true she allowed that the Cambridge don, 

 who had been its tenant through the long vacation 

 in the year before, had also felt, but not seen, the 

 thing she saw because she was endowed with the 

 gift of unveiled sight, which is usually named 

 clairvoyance. She assured me that people endowed 

 with this gift felt no fear, meantime I need have 

 none, since, although she could not tell me all, she 

 could at least assure me that It of the shadows would 

 not harm me. From that day in order to curtail 

 June's short hours of darkness I sat in the two- 

 franc seats of the Opera-House or elsewhere night 

 after night, and walked home as slowly as possible, 

 and quite unmolested, through the " dangerous " 

 streets and boulevards of Paris ; but although the 

 cavalier simply shouted " Life is sweet and nothing 

 matters " as I opened the doors as noisily as possible 

 so that I might not hear the beating of my heart, 

 and although my smiling boy pleaded that he loved 

 the pleasant, peaceful room better even than the 

 home where his creator had snatched a wandering 

 sunbeam, and hidden the treasure in his eyes ; 

 and although my friend of the unveiled sight said 

 I could take it on at the end of her lease for the 

 beguiling rent of sixteen pounds a year, I left before 

 my tenancy expired because I simply couldn't 

 stand it any longer. I ran away from the inde- 

 finable, haunting, suffocating something I was 

 afraid of. I know about fear, and it isn't on the 



