ed in me by
his looking so absurdly like a villain in a melodrama. The sheen of his
tilted hat and of his shirt-front, the repeated twists he was giving to
his moustache, and most of all the magnificence of his sneer, gave token
that he was there only to be foiled.

He was at our table in a stride. 'I am sorry,' he sneered witheringly,
'to break up your pleasant party, but--'

'You don't: you complete it,' I assured him. 'Mr. Soames and I want
to have a little talk with you. Won't you sit? Mr. Soames got
nothing--frankly nothing--by his journey this afternoon. We don't wish
to say that the whole thing was a swindle--a common swindle. On the
contrary, we believe you meant well. But of course the bargain, such as
it was, is off.'

The Devil gave no verbal answer. He merely looked at Soames and pointed
with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames was wretchedly rising from
his chair when, with a desperate quick gesture, I swept together two
dinner-knives that were on the table, and laid their blades across
each other. The Devil stepped sharp back against the table behind him,
averting his face and shuddering.

'You are not superstitious!' he hissed.

'Not at all,' I smiled.

'Soames!' he said as to an underling, but without turning his face, 'put
those knives straight!'

With an inhibitive gesture to my friend, 'Mr. Soames,' I said
emphatically to the Devil, 'is a CATHOLIC Diabolist'; but my poor friend
did the Devil's bidding, not mine; and now, with his master's eyes again
fixed on him, he arose, he shuffled past me. I tried to speak. It was
he that spoke. 'Try,' was the prayer he threw back at me as the Devil
pushed him roughly out through the door, 'TRY to make them know that I
did exist!'

In another instant I too was through that door. I stood staring all
ways--up the street, across it, down it. There was moonlight and
lamplight, but there was not Soames nor that other.

Dazed, I stood there. Dazed, I turned back, at length, into the little
room; and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon,
and for Soames': I hope so, for I never went to the Vingtieme again.
Ever since that night I have avoided Greek Street altogether. And for
years I did not set foot even in Soho Square, because on that same night
it was there that I paced and loitered, long and long, with some such
dull sense of hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where
he has lost something.... 'Round and round the shut