Equally did they seem to expect, or dread, an apparition from the hotel.

It would have been hard to pick out, at that instant, two persons more singularly ill at ease in all New York.
Curtis saw that the clerk, now at his desk, was engaged with a lady, so he strolled to the door, being rather interested in the excited antics of the pair on the sidewalk.

He had just passed through the door when an automobile dashed up, and he fancied, though he could not be quite sure in the half-light, that the chauffeur nodded to the waiting men.
The porter opened the door of the automobile, and a young man in evening dress, and carrying an overcoat, leaped out.

Obviously, he was in a desperate hurry, and Curtis heard him say in French: "Don't stop the engine, Anatole.

I shall be but one moment." At that instant the two foreigners sprang at him.