ned away....

At exactly half-past one I went down to the cafe for lunch. The room
was fairly full, but almost the first person I saw was Louis, suave
and courteous, conducting a party of guests to their places. I took my
seat at my accustomed table, and watched him for a few moments as he
moved about. What a waiter he must have been, I thought! His movements
were swift and noiseless. His eyes seemed like points of electricity,
alive to the smallest fault on the part of his subordinates, the
slightest frown on the faces of his patrons. There was scarcely a
person lunching there who did not feel that he himself was receiving
some part of Louis' personal attention. One saw him in the distance,
suggesting with his easy smile a suitable luncheon to some bashful
youth; or found him, a moment or two later, comparing reminiscences of
some wonderful sauce with a _bon viveur_, an habitue of the
place. Such a man, I thought, was wasted as a _maitre d'hotel._
He had the gifts of a diplomatist, the presence and inspiration of a
genius.

I had imagined that my entrance into the room was unnoticed, but I
found him suddenly bowing before my table.

"The _Plat du Jour_," he remarked, "is excellent. Monsieur should
try it. After a few days of French cookery," he continued, "a simple
English dish is sometimes an agreeable relief."

"Thank you, Louis," I answered. "Tell me what has become of
Mr. Delora?"

My sudden attack was foiled with the consummate ease of a master--if,
indeed, the man was not genuine.

"Mr. Delora!" he repeated. "Is he not staying here,--he and his niece?
I have been looking for them to come into luncheon."

"His niece is here," I answered. "Mr. Delora never arrived."

Louis then did a thing which I have never seen him do before or
afterwards,--he dropped something which he was carrying! It was only a
wine carte, and he stooped and picked it up at once with a word of
graceful apology. But I noticed that when he once more stood erect,
the exercise of stooping, so far from having brought any flush into
his face, seemed to have driven from it every atom of color.

"You mean that Mr. Delora went elsewhere, Monsieur?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"They travelled up from Folkestone," I said, "in my carriage. At
Charing Cross Mr. Delora, who had been suffering, he said, from
sea-sickness, and who was certainly very nervous and ill at ease,
jumped out before the train had altogether stopped and hurried off to