u have been really lonely for me
and--"

He stopped suddenly; two big electric lights loomed at the corner to
their right and the scene which was revealed by the uncurtained state of
the window was responsible for the sudden turn of the current of his
thoughts.

"We can eat there," he exclaimed.

She stopped, astonished.

"Can we?" she asked. "I wouldn't think so."

"But surely yes," he affirmed; "it is a cafe."

He flung the door open as he spoke and stood back to let her pass
inside.

"It is a little smoky," he continued, as the door fell to, "but--"

"A little!" she interrupted.

"But what does that do to you? and there is another lady, so it is very
right for you to be here too."

"She doesn't look like a lady to me," said Rosina, dodging under a
billiard-cue, for in this particular cafe the centre of the room is
occupied by the billiard-tables; "she looks decidedly otherwise."

Von Ibn glanced carelessly at the person alluded to.

"It is always a woman," he remarked; and then he led the way around to
a vacant corner where there was somewhat less confusion than elsewhere.
"Here you may sit down," he commanded, and laid aside his own hat and
overcoat.

She obeyed him, contemplating her surroundings with interest as she
began to unbutton her gloves.

For the place was, to her eyes, unique of its kind, her lot having been
cast hitherto in quite another class of cafes. It was very large, and
decidedly hideous, wainscoted in imitation panels and frescoed in
imitation paintings. The columns which supported the ceilings were
brilliantly banded in various colors and flowered out below their
pediments into iron branches of oak leaves among which blossomed the
bulbs of many electric lights. By each column stood a severely plain
hat-rack. In the middle of the room were four billiard tables, around
its sides numberless small marble-topped stands where beer was being
served galore. Against the walls were fastened several of those
magnificent mirrors which testify so loudly to the reasonable price of
good glass in that happy land across the seas; each mirror was flanked
by two stuffed eagles, and decorated above its centre with one ornate
quirl in gilt and stucco. And the whole was full and more than full of
smoke.

Von Ibn rapped on the tiled floor with his umbrella, and a waitress
serving at a table near, five beer-mugs in each hand, nodded that she
heard. Then he turned to Rosina:

"_Eh bien!_"

"I nev