fine restaurants. None so
jocund, so frank and free as Presidio in ordering the best at the best
places. Mrs. Presidio did not accompany him; she was enjoying the more
poignant pleasure of shopping, with a responsible theater manager as her
reference! At a restaurant one midday, as Presidio was leisurely
breakfasting, he became aware that he was the object of furtive
observation by a young lady, seated with an elderly companion at a table
somewhat removed. Furtive doings were in his line, and he made a close
study of the party, never turning more than a scant half-face to do so.
The manner of the young lady was puzzling. None so keen as Presidio in
reading expression, but hers he could not understand. That she was not
trying to flirt with him he decided promptly and definitively; yet her
looks were intended to attract his attention, and to do so secretly. The
elderly companion, when the couple was leaving the restaurant, stopped
in the vestibule to allow an attendant to adjust her wrap, and Presidio
seized that chance to pass close to the young lady, moving as slowly as
he dared without seeming to be concerned in her actions. Her head was
averted, but Presidio distinctly heard her breathe, rather than whisper,
"Pass by the house to-morrow afternoon."

* * * * *

Presidio pondered. He was supposed to know where her house was; he was
unwelcome to some one there; he was mistaken for some one
else--Carrington!

When he told his wife about it she was in a fever of romantic
excitement. Bruising knocks in the world, close approaches to the shades
of the prison house, hardships which would have banished romance from a
nature less robustly romantic, had for Mrs. Presidio but more glowingly
suffused with the tints of romance all life--but her own! "Mr.
Carrington has done us right, Willie," she declared; "once in Manila,
when we simply _had_ to get to Hong Kong; and here, where we wouldn't
have had no show on earth if he hadn't lent you the clothes and cash for
the start. There's something doing here, Willie; and I'm all lit up with
excitement."

Presidio, who, of course, had followed the young lady to learn where she
lived, passed the house the next day, the sedatest looking man on the
sedate block. Presently a maid came from the house, gave him a beckoning
nod, and hurried on round the corner. There she slipped him a note,
saying as she walked on, "I was to give you this, Mr. Carrington."