his recent preoccupation seemed to have vanished. He was smoking a fresh
cigarette, and his bright, deep-set eyes were lit with gentle mirth.

"Well, Mr. Novelist," he exclaimed, "have you succeeded? Is your languid
muse stirred? Have you seen a face, a look, a gesture--anything to prick
your imagination?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I have seen one thing," I answered, "which it is not easy to forget. I
have seen fear, and very pathetic it was."

"You mean----?"

"In the face of that child, or rather girl, with that coarse-looking
brute of a man."

The light seemed to die out from my companion's face. Once more he
became stern and thoughtful.

"Yes," he agreed; "I too saw that. If one were looking for tragedy, one
might perhaps find it there."

We stood now together on the pavement outside the station. My companion
glanced at his watch.

"Come," he said; "I have a fancy that you and I might exchange a few
ideas. I am a lonely man, and to-day I am not in the humour for
solitude. Do me the favour to lunch with me!"

I did not hesitate for a moment. It was exactly the sort of invitation
which I had coveted.

"I shall be delighted," I answered.

"I myself," my companion continued, "have no gift for writing. My
talents, such as they are, lie in a different direction. But I have been
in many countries, and adventures have come to me of various sorts. I
may be able even to start you on your way--if, indeed, the author of
_The Lost Princess_ is ever short of an idea."

I smiled.

"I can assure you," I said, "that my pilgrimage this morning has no
other object than to find one. I begin to fear that I have written too
much lately. At any rate, the well of my inspiration, if I may use so
grandiloquent a term, has run dry."

He put up his stick and hailed a hansom.

"After all," he said, "it is possible--yes, it is possible that you may
succeed. Adventures wait for us everywhere, if only we go about in a
proper frame of mind. We will lunch, I think, at the Cafe Grand."

I followed my prospective host into the cab. Was it altogether a
coincidence, I wondered, that we were bound for the same restaurant
whither the man and the girl had preceded us a few minutes before?

CHAPTER III

Mr. Grooten, as my new acquaintance called himself, belied neither his
appearance nor his modest reference to himself. He proved at once that
he knew how to order a satisfactory luncheon, going through the _menu_
with the