tson? You were pointed out
to me once at the Vagabonds' Club, and I never forget a face. Here they
come! Look! Look!"

The train had come to a standstill. People were streaming out upon the
platform. My companion laid his fingers upon my arm. He talked rapidly
but lightly.

"You see them, my young friend," he exclaimed. "Those are returning
tourists from Switzerland; the thin, sharp-featured girl there, with a
plaid skirt and a satchel, is an American. Heavens! how she talks! She
has lost a trunk. The whole system will be turned upside down until she
has found it or been compensated. The two young men with her are silent.
They are wise. Alone she will prevail. You see the man of commerce; he
is off already. He has been to France, perhaps to Belgium also, to buy
silks and laces. And the stout old gentleman? See how happy he looks to
be back again where English is spoken, and he can pay his way in
half-crowns and shillings. You see the milliner's head-woman, dressed
with obtrusive smartness, though everything seems a little awry. She has
been over to Paris for the fashions; in a few days her firm will send
out a little circular, and Hampstead or Balham will be much impressed.
And--what do you make of those two, my young friend?"

It seemed to me that my companion's tone was changed, that his whole
appearance was different. I was suddenly conscious of an irresistible
conviction. I did not believe any longer that he was, like me, an idle
loiterer here. I felt that his presence had a purpose, and that it was
connected in some measure with the two people to whom my attention was
so suddenly drawn. They were, in that somewhat heterogeneous crowd,
sufficiently noticeable. The man, although he assumed the jauntiness of
youth, was past middle-age, and his mottled cheeks, his thin, watery
eyes, and thick red neck were the unmistakeable hall-marks of years of
self-indulgence. He was well dressed and groomed, and his demeanour
towards his companion was one of deferential good humour. She, however,
was a person of a very different order. She was a girl apparently
between fifteen and sixteen, her figure as yet undeveloped, her dresses
a little too short. Her face was small and white, her mouth had a most
pathetic droop, and in her eyes--wonderful, deep blue eyes--there was a
curious look of shrinking fear, beneath which flashed every now and then
a gleam of positive terror. Her dark hair was arranged in a thick
straight fringe upon