CHAPTER XV.
A VIGIL Upon Mrs.Hastings and Mr.Augustus Frothingham, drowsing over the pocket chess-board, the sound of footsteps and men's voices in the corridor acted with electrical effect.

Then the door was opened and behind Olivia and Antoinette appeared the two visitors who seemed to have fallen from the neighbouring heavens.

The two chess-pretenders looked up aghast.

If there were a place in the world where chaperonage might be relaxed the uninformed observer would say that it would be the top of Mount Khalak.
"Mercy around us!" cried Mrs.Medora Hastings, "if it isn't that newspaper man! He's probably come over here to cable it all over the front page of every paper in New York.

Well," she added complacently, as if she had brought it all about, "it seems good to see some of your own race.