rasped the table with one hand and
pushed back the chair with the other, while Maurice heard the name of an
exceedingly warm place.

The gendarme, who was leaning against the pillar, straightened, opened
his jaws, snapped them, and hurried off.

"Maurice--Maurice Carewe?" said the bewildered Englishman.

"No one else, though I must say you do not seem very glad to see me,"
Maurice answered, conscious that he was all things but welcome.

"Hang you, I'm not!" incogitantly.

"Go to the devil, then!" cried Maurice, hotly.

"Gently," said Fitzgerald, catching Maurice by the coat and pulling him
down into a chair. "Confound you, could you not have made yourself known
to me without yelling my name at the top of your voice?"

"Are you ashamed of it?" asked Maurice, loosing his coat from
Fitzgerald's grip.

"I'm afraid of it," the Englishman admitted, in a lowered voice. "And
your manly, resonant tones have cast it abroad. I am here incognito."

"Who the deuce are you?"

"I am Don Jahpet of Armenia; that is to say that I am a marked man. And
now, as you would inelegantly express it, you have put a tag on me. When
I left you in Vienna the other day I lied to you. I am sorry. I should
have trusted you, only I did not wish you to risk your life. You would
have insisted on coming along."

"Risked my life?" echoed Maurice. "How many times have I not risked
it? By the way," impressed by a sudden thought, "are you the Englishman
every one seems to be expecting?"

"Yes." Fitzgerald knocked his pipe against the railing. "I am the man.
Worse luck! Was any one near when you called me by name?"

"Only one of those wooden gendarmes."

"Only one of those wooden gendarmes!" ironically. "Only one of those
dogs who have been at my heels ever since I arrived. And he, having
heard, has gone back to his master. Well, since you have started the
ball rolling, it is no more than fair that you should see the game to
its end."

"What's it all about?" asked Maurice, his astonishment growing and
growing.

"Where are your rooms?"

"You have something important to tell me?"

"Perhaps you may think so. At the Continental? Come along."

They passed out of the pavilion, along the path to the square, thence to
the terrace of the Continental, which they mounted. Not a word was said,
but Maurice was visibly excited, and by constant gnawing ruined his
cigar. He conducted his friend to the room on the second floor, the
window of which opene