I saw the usual throng come strolling in--I myself had often been one of them--actresses who had not time to make a toilette for the restaurant proper, actors, managers, agents, performers from all the hundreds of pleasure houses which London boasts, Americans who had not troubled to dress, Frenchwomen who objected to the order prohibiting their appearance in hats elsewhere,--a heterogeneous, light-hearted crowd, not afraid to laugh, to make jokes, certain to outstay their time, supping frugally or _au prince_, according to the caprice of the moment.

And upstairs I saw myself waiting in a darkened room for what?
I felt a thrill of something which I had felt just before the final assault upon Ladysmith, when we had drunk our last whiskey and soda, thrown away our cigarettes, and it had been possible to wonder, for a moment, whether ever again our lips would hold another.

Only this was a very different matter.

I might be ending my days, for all I knew, on behalf of a gang of swindlers! "Louis," I said, "it would make me much more comfortable if you could be a little more candid.

You might tell me in plain words what these men want from Delora.