e Ritz would be the best place.

They met at the Ritz at one o'clock.

Miss Briggs, a small, dark, elderly and animated person, immensely rich
and full of worldly wisdom, wondered why Lady Sellingworth had come over
to Paris, was told "clothes," and smilingly accepted the explanation.
She knew Lady Sellingworth very well, and, being extremely sharp and
intuitive, realized at once that clothes had nothing to do with this
sudden visit. A voice within her said: "It's a man!"

And presently the man came into the restaurant, accompanied by the
eternal old woman in the black wig.

Now Caroline Briggs had an enormous and cosmopolitan acquaintance. She
was the sort of woman who knows wealthy Greeks, Egyptian pashas, Turkish
princesses, and wonderful exotic personages from Brazil, Persia, Central
America and the Indies. She gave parties which were really romantic,
which had a flavour, as someone had said, of the novels of Ouida brought
thoroughly up to date. Lady Sellingworth had been to some of them, and
had not forgotten them. And it had occurred to her that if anyone she
knew was acquainted with the brown man, that person might be Caroline
Briggs. She had, therefore, come to the Ritz with a faint hope in her
mind.

Miss Brigs happened to be seated with her smart back to the man and old
woman when they entered the restaurant, and they sat down at a table
behind her, but in full view of Lady Sellingworth, who wished to draw
her companion's attention to them, but who also was reluctant to show
any interest in them. She knew that Miss Briggs knew a great deal about
her, and she did not mind that. But nevertheless, she felt at this
moment a certain _pudeur_ which was almost like the _pudeur_ of a girl.
Had it come to her with her entrance into the fifties? Or was it a cruel
gift from her imp? She was not sure; but she could not persuade herself
to draw Miss Briggs's attention to the people who interested her until
the bill was presented and it was almost time to leave the restaurant.

Then at last she could keep silence no longer, and she said:

"The people one sees in Paris seem to become more and more
extraordinary! Many of them one can't place at all."

Miss Briggs, who had lived in Paris for quite thirty years, remarked:

"Do you think they are more extraordinary than the people one sees about
London?"

"Yes, really I do. That old woman in the black wig over there, for
instance, intrigues me. Where can she come from