'Oh, I can well imagine.'

She looked at me over the rim of her cup. 'Daddy told me you knew the gentleman in question.'

'I knew him quite well, and I can tell you that finding himself in a lady's bedroom would certainly have given him cause for alarm.'

She smiled, her pleasant round face lighting the dullness of a rainy Saturday afternoon. 'I really didn't mean to startle him. But waking up and seeing him standing there at the foot of the bed, all tall and rumpled, and dripping like a drainpipe-well, I'm afraid I shouted at him terribly.'

'You were frightened, I expect.'

'I was at first. But that passed in an instant for I could see he was perplexed.'

'Perplexed?'

'Yes,' she said, nodding thoughtfully, 'that is the word. He didn't seem to know what he was about. You know how it is-you'll be going on about your business, absorbed in your thoughts, and then you look up… where am I?' She laughed. 'Happens to me all the time-don't tell me it's never happened to you.'

'It has been known,' I confessed, enjoying the pleasure of her lively company. 'I once found myself in the Royal Museum with no recollection of how I'd got there.'

'Well, that's how he looked to me-like he didn't quite know where he was or how he got there.'

'Did you know he was aboard the ship that was sunk by the German torpedo?'

'So Daddy told me.' She shook her head gravely, and was silent for a moment, then said, 'That would explain the dripping water.'

'Did he say anything? Did he make any sound at all?'

'He did indeed. He said he was sorry for disturbing me; he told me his name and begged my pardon. Then he wished me a good day-at least that's what I thought he said. I can't be at all certain.'

'Why is that?'

'He was already vanishing by then, you see. He didn't go all of a snap!' She clicked her fingers. 'He began to fade away-like when a cloud passes over the sun and the day goes dim.'