-could be seen. By what struck her as an odd
coincidence, the table was decorated with a vase of white roses whose
hearts blushed faintly in the light of a pink-shaded electric lamp.

A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, dragged along, and no Mr. Smith.
Annesley could follow the passing moments on her wrist-watch in its
silver bracelet, the only present Mrs. Ellsworth had ever given her,
with the exception of cast-off clothes, and a pocket handkerchief each
Christmas.

Every nerve in the girl's body seemed to prickle with embarrassment. She
played with a dinner roll, changed the places of the flowers and the
lamp, trying to appear at ease, and not daring to look up lest she should
meet eyes curious or pitying.

"What if they make me pay for dinner after I've kept the table so long?"
she thought in her ignorance of hotel customs. "And I've got only a
shilling!"

Half an hour now, all but two minutes! There was nothing more to hope or
fear. But there was the ordeal of getting away.

"I'll sit out the two minutes," she told herself. "Then I'll go. Ought I
to tip the waiter?" Horrible doubt! And she must have been dreaming to
touch that roll! Better sneak away while the waiter was busy at a
distance.

Frightened, miserable, she was counting her chances when a man, whose
coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, marched
unhesitatingly to her table.

CHAPTER II

SMITHS AND SMITHS

Annesley glanced up, her face aflame, like a fanned coal. The man was
tall, dark, lean, square-jawed, handsome in just that thrilling way which
magazine illustrators and women love; the ideal story-hero to look at,
even to the clothes which any female serial writer would certainly have
described as "immaculate evening dress."

It was too good--oh, far too wonderfully good!--to be true that this
man should be Mr. Smith. Yet if he were not Mr. Smith why should
he----Annesley got no farther in the thought, though it flashed through
her mind quick as light. Before she had time to seek an answer for her
question the man--who was young, or youngish, not more than thirty-three
or four--had bent over her as if greeting a friend, and had begun to
speak in a low voice blurred by haste or some excitement.

"You will do me an immense service," he said, "if you'll pretend to know
me and let me sit down here. You sha'n't regret it, and it may save my
life."

"Sit down," answered something in Annesley that was newly awake. S