mmercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose,
that distinction--that air of having been places and seen things and
known people--"

"Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that--even the air of
having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley.
It's well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor
that you need watching."

Shirley Claiborne's eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the _Neue
Freie Presse_. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table
without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then
the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His
gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss
Claiborne and her brother unseeingly--with, perhaps, too studied an air
of indifference.

"He has known real sorrow," persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table,
her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. "He's traveling
in an effort to forget a blighting grief," the girl continued with mock
sympathy.

"Then let us leave him in peace! We can't decently linger in the presence
of his sacred sorrow."

Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to
spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to
join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The
Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton
Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts,
was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in
international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian
government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United
States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and
had proceeded thence to England on other professional business.

Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to
shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the
Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the
first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent
the morning at their brother's school and were enjoying a late _dejeuner_
at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that
was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had
just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the
service. He did not know an