ed.

"We shall expect you," Mr. Bomford declared, "at a quarter past eight
this evening."

CHAPTER XXIII

CONDEMNED!

To Burton, who was in those days an epicure in sensations, there was
something almost ecstatic in the pleasure of that evening. They dined
at a little round table in the most desirable corner of the room--the
professor and Edith, Mr. Bomford and himself. The music of one of the
most famous orchestras in Europe alternately swelled and died away,
always with the background of that steady hum of cheerful conversation.
It was his first experience of a restaurant de luxe. He looked about
him in amazed wonder. He had expected to find himself in a palace of
gilt, to find the prevailing note of the place an unrestrained and
inartistic gorgeousness. He found instead that the decorations
everywhere were of spotless white, the whole effect one of cultivated
and restful harmony. The glass and linen on the table were perfect.
There was nowhere the slightest evidence of any ostentation. Within a
few feet of him, separated only by that little space of tablecloth and a
great bowl of pink roses, sat Edith, dressed as he had never seen her
before, a most becoming flush upon her cheeks, a new and softer
brilliancy in her eyes, which seemed always to be seeking his. They
drank champagne, to the taste and effects of which he was as yet
unaccustomed. Burton felt its inspiring effect even though he himself
drank little.

The conversation was always interesting. The professor talked of
Assyria, and there was no man who had had stranger experiences. He
talked with the eloquence and fervor of a man who speaks of things which
have become a passion with him; so vividly, indeed, that more than once
he seemed to carry his listeners with him, back through the ages, back
into actual touch with the life of thousands of years ago, which he
described with such full and picturesque detail. Not at any time during
the dinner was the slightest allusion made to that last heated interview
which had taken place between the three men. Even when they sat out in
the palm court afterwards, and smoked and listened to the band and
watched the people, Mr. Bomford only distantly alluded to it.

"I want to ask you, Mr. Burton," he said, "what you think of your
surroundings--of the restaurant and your neighbors on every side?"

"The restaurant is very beautiful," Burton admitted. "The whole place
seems delightful. One can only judge of the pe