to a perfection
unusual in this country. She wore only one ring, in which was set a
magnificent uncut emerald. I held her fingers for a moment, and raised
them to my lips.

"I shall be always at your service," I answered quietly, "however
much--or however little you may care to tell me. Goodnight!"

I went to my rooms and washed. Afterwards I descended and ordered some
supper in the cafe.

"Louis is not back yet?" I remarked to the waiter who attended to me.

"Not yet, monsieur," the man answered. "We expect him some time
to-morrow. Monsieur is also from Paris?"

I nodded, and did not pursue the subject. On my way back to my rooms
half an hour later I stopped to speak for a few minutes with the
hall-porter.

"Mr. Delora has not arrived yet, sir," he remarked.

"No!" I answered. "I dare say there has been some slight mistake. I
fancy that he has telephoned to his niece."

The hall-porter looked a little puzzled.

"It is rather a curious thing, sir," he said, "but there seem to be a
good many people who are wanting to see Mr. Delora. We have had at
least a dozen inquiries for him during the last few days, and all from
people who refuse to leave their names."

I nodded.

"Business friends, perhaps," I remarked. "Mr. Delora comes over to
keep friends with his connections here, I suppose."

The hall-porter coughed discreetly but mysteriously.

"No doubt, sir," he remarked.

I went on my way to my rooms, not caring to pursue the conversation.
Yet I felt that there was something beneath it all. Ashley knew or
guessed something which he would have told me with very little
encouragement. Over a final cigarette I tried to think the matter
out. Here were these people, remarkable for nothing except the
obviously foreign appearance of the man, and the good taste and beauty
of the girl. I had seen them at every fashionable haunt in Paris, and
finally at a restaurant which Louis had frankly admitted to be the
meeting-place of people whose careers were by no means above
suspicion. I had crossed with them to England, and if their presence
on the train were not the cause for Louis' insisting upon my hurried
departure from Paris, it at any rate afforded him gratification to
think that I might, perhaps, make their acquaintance. During the whole
of the journey neither of them had made the slightest overture towards
me. That we had come together at all was, without doubt, accidental.
I did not for a moment doubt the girl's