his real life and being.

For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had
crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and
inevitable for him to act.

At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered
appointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, but
where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it was
for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came
back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever
it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket
engagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omitted
to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either
the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down.

But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed
to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart,
accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that
beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. The
emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause
the actual details of the appointment to reappear.

Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some
one was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitely
arranged to meet. He was expected by a person that very night and just
about that very time. But by whom? Where? A curious inner trembling came
over him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to be
ready for anything that might come.

And then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment was
this very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised to
meet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him.

He looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. The
majority of the diners were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with much
gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerks
like himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, but
there was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell upon
the occupant of the corner seat opposite, generally filled by himself.

"There's the man who's waiting for me!" thought Jones instantly.

He knew it at once. The man, he saw, was sitting well back into the
corner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skin
was