The place was very crowded. For a moment it seemed to Gillian as though
there were no vacant seat. Then she espied an empty table for two in a
distant corner and hastily made her way thither. She had barely given
her order to the waitress when the swing doors parted again to admit
someone else--a man this time.

The new arrival paused, as Gillian herself had done, to search out a
seat. Then, noting the empty place at her table, he came quickly towards
it.

Gillian was idly scanning the list of marvellous little cakes furnished
by the menu, and her first cognisance of the new-comer's approach was
the vision of a strong, masculine hand gripping the back of the chair
opposite her preparatory to pulling it out from under the table.

"I'm afraid there's no other vacant seat," he was beginning
apologetically. But at the sound of his voice Gillian's eyes flew up
from that virile-looking hand to the face of its owner, and a low cry of
surprise broke from her lips.

"Dan Storran!"

Simultaneously the man gave utterance to her own name.

Gillian stared at him stupidly. Could this really be Dan
Storran--Storran of Stockleigh?

The alteration in him was immense. He looked ten years older. An
habitual stoop had lessened his apparent height and the dark, kinky hair
was streaked with grey. The golden-tan bestowed by an English sun had
been exchanged for the sallow skin of a man who has lived hard in a
hot country, and the face was thin and heavily lined. Only the eyes of
periwinkle-blue remained to remind Gillian of the splendid young giant
she had known at Ashencombe--and even they were changed and held the
cynical weariness of a man who has eaten of Dead Sea fruit and found it
bitter to the taste.

There were other changes, too. Storran of Stockleigh was as civilised,
his clothes and general appearance as essentially "right," as those of
the men around him. All suggestion of the "cave-man from the backwoods,"
as Lady Arabella had termed him, was gone.

"I didn't know you were in England," said Gillian at last.

"I landed yesterday."

"You've been in South America, haven't you?"

She spoke mechanically. There seemed something forced and artificial
about this exchange of platitudes between herself and the man who had
figured so disastrously in Magda's life. Without warning he brought the
conversation suddenly back to the realities.

"Yes. I was in 'Frisco when my wife died. Since then I've been half over
the world.