intentness. She raised her
head and stared around the unfamiliar room doubtfully, then turned to
where her father stood, looking at him a moment, and passed him by; and
then, looking up into Van Bibber's face, recognized him, and gave a
gentle, sleepy smile, and, with a sigh of content and confidence, drew
her arm up closer around his neck, and let her head fall back upon his
breast.

The father sprang to his feet with a quick, jealous gasp of pain.
"Give her to me!" he said, fiercely, under his breath, snatching her
out of Van Bibber's arms. "She is mine; give her to me!"

Van Bibber closed the door gently behind him, and went jumping down the
winding stairs of the Berkeley three steps at a time.

And an hour later, when the English servant came to his master's door,
he found him still awake and sitting in the dark by the open window,
holding something in his arms and looking out over the sleeping city.

"James," he said, "you can make up a place for me here on the lounge.
Miss Caruthers, my daughter, will sleep in my room to-night."

Van Bibber's Man Servant

Van Bibber's man Walters was the envy and admiration of his friends.
He was English, of course, and he had been trained in the household of
the Marquis Bendinot, and had travelled, in his younger days, as the
valet of young Lord Upton. He was now rather well on in years,
although it would have been impossible to say just how old he was.
Walters had a dignified and repellent air about him, and he brushed his
hair in such a way as to conceal his baldness.

And when a smirking, slavish youth with red checks and awkward gestures
turned up in Van Bibber's livery, his friends were naturally surprised,
and asked how he had come to lose Walters. Van Bibber could not say
exactly, at least he could not rightly tell whether he had dismissed
Walters or Walters had dismissed himself. The facts of the unfortunate
separation were like this:

Van Bibber gave a great many dinners during the course of the season at
Delmonico's, dinners hardly formal enough to require a private room,
and yet too important to allow of his running the risk of keeping his
guests standing in the hall waiting for a vacant table. So he
conceived the idea of sending Walters over about half-past six to keep
a table for him. As everybody knows, you can hold a table yourself at
Delmonico's for any length of time until the other guests arrive, but
the rule is very strict about servants