of the Carlton. About a fortnight to three weeks
ago, at lunch."

"Oh!"--he weighed the suggestion for a moment. "You may be right. I
daresay."

Resolved not to mention that other encounter when he had been with Lady
Clifford, Esther grew bolder.

"Weren't you there with two ladies, rather Spanish-looking, one much
older than the other?"

He raised his brows and blew out a cloud of smoke.

"I shouldn't wonder," he assented, and seemed to dismiss the subject
from his thoughts.

While Esther resumed her task he roamed aimlessly about, winding up
again in the salon, where she heard him rustling a newspaper. Jacques,
coming in to lay the table for _dejeuner_, glanced across the hall and
whispered to Esther.

"That _capitaine_ will stay for _dejeuner_. It is good I have a
_ragout_ to-day, there will be _assez_ for three. I need only to put
another egg in the omelette."

He laid three places, then from the recess at the bottom of the
sideboard he produced a cocktail shaker and a variety of bottles.

"That young man he stay here once for three weeks," remarked Jacques.
"Always he mix the cocktails, many different kind. But to-day he will
not like it that I have no ice."

A latch-key grated in the outer door, the doctor's heavy step resounded
along the hall, pausing at the salon.

"Ah, Holliday," he said without surprise. "I saw your car outside."

"About the last you'll see of it, doctor," the visitor replied, joining
him. "I'm going to sell it. Know anybody who wants a decent little
car cheap?"

The two entered the _salle a manger_ together. Esther saw the doctor
give his friend a slow ruminative glance before inquiring:

"Why do you want to get rid of it?"

"Oh, I'm thinking of leaving this part of the world in a few weeks'
time. No good carting a car as far as I'm going--too damned expensive."

"And where are you going?"

The doctor stood blinking down on the young man with his odd, sluggish
little eyes. He appeared tired and not specially interested, yet there
was a sort of negative friendliness in his attitude which Esther had
not seen before.

"I may go out to the Argentine. There's a job offered me out there."

"South America!"

The sleepy gaze flickered over the whole slight, dapper person of the
captain, betraying frank scorn.

"So that's it, is it?" He began feeling in his pocket for a cigarette,
adding as an after-thought, "I suppose you've made up your mind about
it?"