VI + 

“Well, what did you think of Miss Seymour?” inquired Puddle, when Stephen got back about twenty minutes later. + 

Stephen hesitated: “I’m not perfectly certain. She was very friendly, but I couldn’t help feeling that she liked me because she thought me⁠—oh, well, because she thought me what I am, Puddle. But I may have been wrong⁠—she was awfully friendly. Brockett was at his very worst though, poor devil! His environment seemed to go to his head.” She sank down wearily on to a chair: “Oh, Puddle, Puddle, it’s a hell of a business.” + 

Puddle nodded. + 

Then Stephen said rather abruptly: “All the same, we’re going to live here in Paris. We’re going to look at a house tomorrow, an old house with a garden in the Rue Jacob.” + 

For a moment Puddle hesitated, then she said: “There’s only one thing against it. Do you think you’ll ever be happy in a city? You’re so fond of the life that belongs to the country.” + 

Stephen shook her head: “That’s all past now, my dear; there’s no country for me away from Morton. But in Paris I might make some sort of a home, I could work here⁠—and then of course there are people.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Something started to hammer in Puddle’s brain: “Like to like! Like to like! Like to like!” it hammered. + 