We were on the tee near the Captain Digby public-house when a telegraph boy appeared from nowhere, as telegraph boys do, and thrust a telegram into my hand. Absent-mindedly I opened it and read: Dine with me at Hexagon Saturday night eight P.M.—Chief. At a glance I realized that the message was not for me and, looking at the envelope, saw that it was addressed to “Major Desmond Okewood.” With a word of apology I handed the telegram to my friend. The change in his face, as he read it, was extraordinary. A long sigh, almost a groan, of relief burst from his lips and his whole face lighted up. He showed the message to Francis, who grinned cheerfully and said “Good.” “Come on,” cried Desmond, suddenly addressing me. “It’s your honour. I lay you a new ball I take this hole off you.” Needless to say, for my thoughts were anywhere but on the game, I foozled my drive. But Desmond who, as I have said, had been playing disgracefully, hit a perfect ball, and, from that moment on, recovered his form. He was in the wildest spirits, and to see him one would have said that the telegram which had wrought this astonishing change in him had brought him news of a great inheritance rather than a banal invitation to dinner at that rather disreputable West-End haunt, the Hexagon. But even if he had known to what perilous enterprise that invitation was the prelude, I believe he would have shown himself no less heartened. Danger, as Francis says, was ever the best pick-me-up for Desmond Okewood. “Okewood,” said the Chief quietly, “the girl has just come in. Don’t look up for a moment! She’s taken the table next to the door: in black she is: you can’t mistake her, she’s so deathly pale!” The Chief fell to studying his plate with every appearance of absorption, while Desmond Okewood, from behind the cover of the wine-list, glanced casually across the roaring evening life of the Hexagon Buffet. He saw the girl at once. Her extreme pallor, as the Chief had been quick to note, was her most distinctive feature. She wore her hair, which was raven-black, piled high in the Spanish fashion with a tall, white ivory comb, richly carved, at the back. She had retained her fur coat and against its shaggy blackness one white shoulder gleamed milkily. She was obviously a familiar visitor at the Hexagon Buffet, for the head waiter greeted her with a friendly smile as he fussed the table to rights. She ordered her dinner composedly and without hesitation, as one accustomed to fend for herself. In her whole comportment there was an air of dignity, of reserve, which clearly imposed itself on the _maitre d’hôtel_, accustomed as he was to the rather promiscuous familiarity of the other unaccompanied ladies who frequented the Buffet. Her orders given, the girl dropped her eyes to her plate and remained seemingly lost in thought, her long lashes resting like black crescents upon her dead-white cheeks. “Not quite the style of the Hexagon, eh?” remarked Desmond.