With a nod to the guard, Gordon mounted the stairs, turned sharp to the right, and entered the café. It was still early in the night, and not more than a dozen or so of the little round tables were occupied. The men, as a rule, were sleek, well-fed, prosperous in appearance, with a tendency towards flashiness in their general get-up; the women were of the type to be expected in such a place, or rather, perhaps, on the whole, somewhat above it. All were young and well-dressed, many were pretty, and in some cases it needed a keener second glance to detect that inevitable hardness of expression and that trace of artificiality in their somewhat too obvious high spirits which mark the world over the calling of the lower-class courtezan. Over in the corner by the window, however, half hidden in the shelter of a huge palm, sat a young girl of a type entirely different from the rest. Seated alone, the chair opposite her tipped forward against the table as a sign that she was not anxious for company, she sat with elbows on table, chin in hands, gazing with a look of bored indifference at the evidently only too familiar scene. Slender, blonde, possibly a shade too pale, her dress of filmy black lace, her dainty black gloves, her big black picture hat with its sweeping black ostrich plume, all showed an instinctive sense of good taste conspicuously absent in the costumes of her companions. So much for the first general impression. Coming to the girl herself, on closer examination one discovered with some surprise that she was undeniably beautiful. Her features were flawless, her pretty light hair was tastefully arranged over her low forehead, her blue eyes flashed a dangerous gleam from beneath her long lashes, and her red lips seemed framed in a perpetual challenge to the daring of mankind. More than this, one could not rid oneself of the impression that the girl's face, in spite of everything, was somehow a good face; the face of one who, if sinning, did so all but unconscious of the sin. As Gordon entered, she leisurely assumed a more conventional pose, while he, with a quick glance in her direction, threaded his way across the room, and with a word of greeting dropped into the vacant seat. It was evident from the whole manner of both that the meeting was no mere casual one, but that it had been planned for some definite purpose. Any doubt of this, indeed, was dispelled by Gordon's first words. "Well," he queried, leaning forward across the table and lowering his voice a trifle, "did you get what we wanted?" The girl, with evident complacence, slowly nodded. "I have found out," she said, "the whole story. He may be a very shrewd man in some ways, but in others he is--well, let us say vulnerable."