. She was watching a clerk
writing out a voucher for her berth in the sleeping car, and the
office was full of other prospective travelers discussing times and
routes with the officials. Bower thanked his informant for information
which he could have supplied in ampler detail himself. Then he went
out, and looked again at Helen from the doorway; but she was wholly
unaware of his presence.

Thus it came about, quite simply and naturally, that Mark Bower met
Miss Helen Wynton on the platform of Victoria Station on Thursday
morning, and learned that, like himself, she was a passenger by the
Engadine Express. He took her presence as a matter of course, hoped
she would allow him to secure her a comfortable chair on the steamer,
told her that the weather report was excellent, and remarked that they
might expect a pleasant crossing in the new turbine steamer.

[Illustration: "I am going through to St. Moritz."
_Page 38_]

Then, having ascertained that she had a corner seat, and that her
luggage was registered through to St. Moritz (Helen having arrived at
the station a good hour before the train was due to start), he bowed
himself away, being far too skilled a stalker of such shy game to
thrust his company on her at that stage.

His attitude was very polite and friendly, and Helen was almost
grateful to the chance which had brought him there. She was feeling
just a trifle lonely in the midst of the gay and chattering throng
that crowded the station. The presence of one who was not wholly a
stranger, of a friend's friend, of a man whose name was familiar, made
the journey look less dreamlike. She was glad he had not sought to
travel in her carriage. That was tactful, and indeed his courtesy and
pleasant words during her first brief meeting with him in the
Embankment Hotel had conveyed the same favorable impression.

So when the hour hand of the big clock overhanging the center of
the platform pointed to eleven, the long train glided quietly
away with its load of pleasure-seekers, and neither Helen nor her
new acquaintance could possibly know that their meeting had been
witnessed, with a blank amazement that was rapidly transmuted into
sheer annoyance, by a young American engineer named Charles K.
Spencer.

CHAPTER III

WHEREIN TWO PEOPLE BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED

Mackenzie, of course, was aware that Miss Wynton would leave London
by the eleven o'clock train on Thursday, and Spen