crowded
the pavements, which at high noon had been thronged with ladies of
fashion. Here a tailor's staff, there a hatter's lingered awhile as iron
shutters and gratings were secured, and bidding one another good night,
separated and made off towards Tube and bus. The working day was ended.
Society was dressing for dinner.

Gray was about to enter the cab which awaited him, and his
fresh-colored, boyish face wore an expression of eager expectancy,
which must have betrayed the fact to an experienced beholder that he was
hurrying to keep an agreeable appointment. Then, his hand resting on the
handle of the cab-door, this expression suddenly changed to one of alert
suspicion.

A tall, dark man, accompanied by a woman muffled in grey furs and
wearing a silk scarf over her hair, had passed on foot along the
opposite side of the street. Gray had seen them through the cab windows.

His smooth brow wrinkled and his mouth tightened to a thin straight line
beneath the fair "regulation" moustache. He fumbled under his overcoat
for loose silver, drew out a handful and paid off the taximan.

Sometimes walking in the gutter in order to avoid the throngs upon
the pavement, regardless of the fact that his glossy dress-boots were
becoming spattered with mud, Gray hurried off in pursuit of the pair.
Twenty yards ahead he overtook them, as they were on the point of
passing a picture dealer's window, from which yellow light streamed
forth into the humid dusk. They were walking slowly, and Gray stopped in
front of them.

"Hello, you two!" he cried. "Where are you off to? I was on my way to
call for you, Rita."

Flushed and boyish he stood before them, and his annoyance was
increased by their failure to conceal the fact that his appearance was
embarrassing if not unwelcome. Mrs. Monte Irvin was a petite, pretty
woman, although some of the more wonderful bronzed tints of her hair
suggested the employment of henna, and her naturally lovely complexion
was delicately and artistically enhanced by art. Nevertheless, the
flower-like face peeping out from the folds of a gauzy scarf, like a
rose from a mist, whilst her soft little chin nestled into the fur,
might have explained even in the case of an older man the infatuation
which Quentin Gray was at no pains to hide.

She glanced up at her companion, Sir Lucien Pyne, a swarthy, cynical
type of aristocrat, imperturbably. Then: "I had left a note for
you, Quentin," she said hurriedly. She s