.
"By all accounts you've had a most amusing life."

"I have found it so." The other nodded with glimmering eyes. "Not always at
the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at
the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ..."

He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room.

"It takes one back."

"What does?"

"This cafe, my friend."

"To your beginnings, you mean?"

"Yes. It is very like the cafe at Troyon's, at this hour especially, when
there are so few English about."

"Troyon's?"

"A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago--before the
war--it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I
hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I
knew."

"Why did you hate it, sir?"

"Because I suffered there."

He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply
creature in a waiter's jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to
table and collecting used glasses and saucers.

"You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in
mine--omnibus, scullion, valet-de-chambre, butt and scapegoat-in-general to
the establishment, scavenger of food that no one else would eat.... I
suffered there, at Troyon's."

"You, sir?" Karslake exclaimed in astonishment. "Whoever would have thought
that you ... How did you escape?"

"It occurred to me, one day, I was less than half alive and never would be
better while I stayed on in that servitude. So I walked out--into life."

"I wish you'd tell me, sir," Karslake ventured, eagerly.

"Some day, perhaps, when I get back. But now"--he looked at his
watch--"I've got just time enough to taxi to my hotel, pack, and catch the
boat train."

"Don't wait for me," Karslake suggested, signalling the waiter.

"Perhaps it would be as well if I didn't."

They shook hands, and the older man got up, secured his hat and stick, and
started out toward the door, moving leisurely, still looking about him with
the narrowed eyes and smile of reminiscence.

Of a sudden that look was abolished utterly. He had caught sight of Sofia.

Her interest had been so excited by the singular confidences she had
overheard that the girl had quite forgotten herself and her professional
pose of blank neutrality. She was bending forward a little, forearms
resting on the desk, frankly staring.

The man's stride checked, his smile faded, his eyes grew wide an