After an impressive pause he turned slowly and left the room.

"I wonder," he said, as he crossed the landing, "whether, by judiciously
losing my way, I can catch a glimpse of that girl who is like a golden
idol?"

Downstairs, on his way to the door, he saw Agatha coming towards
him, occupied with a book which she was tossing up to the ceiling and
catching. Her melancholy expression, habitual in her lonely moments,
showed that she was not amusing herself, but giving vent to her
restlessness. As her gaze travelled upward, following the flight of
the volume, it was arrested by Smilash. The book fell to the floor. He
picked it up and handed it to her, saying:

"And, in good time, here is the golden idol!"

"What?" said Agatha, confused.

"I call you the golden idol," he said. "When we are apart I always
imagine your face as a face of gold, with eyes and teeth of bdellium,
or chalcedony, or agate, or any wonderful unknown stones of appropriate
colors."

Agatha, witless and dumb, could only look down deprecatingly.

"You think you ought to be angry with me, and you do not know exactly
how to make me feel that you are so. Is that it?"

"No. Quite the contrary. At least--I mean that you are wrong. I am the
most commonplace person you can imagine--if you only knew. No matter