But a new acquaintance, hearing the story for the first time, had a different explanation. “So he got you, too,” he said, laughing. “That has to be the same guy who was hanging around our day camp a year ago this summer. He followed all the girls like that. A short guy, Japanese or something, glasses, smiling all the time.”

“Maybe it was another one,” Christine said.

“There couldn’t be two of them, everything fits. This was a pretty weird guy.”

“What… kind of girls did he follow?” Christine asked.

“Oh, just anyone who happened to be around. But if they paid any attention to him at first, if they were nice to him or anything, he was unshakeable. He was a bit of a pest, but harmless.”

Christine ceased to tell her amusing story. She had been one among many, then. She went back to playing tennis, she had been neglecting her game.

A few months later the policeman who had been in charge of the case telephoned her again.

“Like you to know, Miss, that fellow you were having the trouble with was sent back to his own country. Deported.”

“What for?” Christine asked. “Did he try to come back here?” Maybe she had been special after all, maybe he had dared everything for her.

“Nothing like it,” the policeman said. “He was up to the same tricks in Montreal but he really picked the wrong woman this time—a Mother Superior of a convent. They don’t stand for things like that in Quebec—had him out of here before he knew what happened. I guess he’ll be better off in his own place.”

“How old was she?” Christine asked, after a silence.

“Oh, around sixty, I guess.”

“Thank you very much for letting me know,” Christine said in her best official manner. “It’s such a relief.” She wondered if the policeman had called to make fun of her.

She was almost crying when she put down the phone. What had he wanted from her then? A Mother Superior. Did she really look sixty, did she look like a mother?