"When the last caisson was aboard and stowed, and the last trooper had
sprung jingling to the deck, the transport puffed out into the
Scheldt, and I turned away through the throng of promenaders; and
found a little table on the terrace, just outside of the pretty café.
And as I sat down I became aware of a girl at the next table--a girl
all in white--the most ravishingly and distractingly pretty girl that
I had ever seen. In the agitation of the moment I forgot my name, my
fortune, my aunt, and the Crimson Diamond--all these I forgot in a
purely human impulse to see clearly; and to that end I removed my
monocle from my left eye. Some moments later I came to myself and
feebly replaced it. It was too late; the mischief was done. I was not
aware at first of the exact state of my feelings--for I had never been
in love more than three or four times in all my life--but I did know
that at her request I would have been proud to stand on my head, or
turn a flip-flap into the Scheldt.

"I did not stare at her, but I managed to see her most of the time
when her eyes were in another direction. I found myself drinking
something which a waiter brought, presumably upon an order which I did
not remember having given. Later I noticed that it was a loathsome
drink which the Belgians call 'American grog,' but I swallowed it and
lighted a cigarette. As the fragrant cloud rose in the air, a voice,
which I recognized with a chill, broke, into my dream of enchantment.
Could he have been there all the while--there sitting beside that
vision in white? His hat was off, and the ocean-breezes whispered
about his bald head. His frayed coat-tails were folded carefully over
his knees, and between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he
balanced a bad cigar. He looked at me in a mildly cheerful way, and
said, 'I know now.' "'Know what?' I asked, thinking it better to humor him, for I was
convinced that he was mad.