"It doesn't matter," observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters, which had now made their appearance. "My dear Beatrice," I remonstrated, "you are the most charming creature in the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn't matter to you." "Oh, don't be tiresome. It doesn't matter to you, either, you know. Do go away, and leave me to dine in peace." "Half a minute," said Hamlyn. "I thought I'd got it just now, but it's gone again. Look here, though; I believe it's one of those long things that end in 'poulos.'" "Oh, it ends in 'poulos,' does it?" said I, in a meditative tone. "My dear Charlie," said Beatrice, "I shall end in Bedlam, if you're so very tedious. What in the world I shall do when I'm married, I don't know." "My dearest!" said Mrs. Hipgrave; and a stage direction might add: "Business with brows, as before." "'Poulos'?" I repeated. "Could it be Constantinopoulos?" asked Hamlyn, with a nervous deference to my Hellenic learning. "It might, conceivably," I hazarded, "be Constantine Stefanopoulos." "Then," said Hamlyn, "I shouldn't wonder if it was. Anyhow, the less you see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that." "But," I objected--and I must admit that I have a habit of thinking that everybody follows my train of thought--"it's such a small place that, if he goes, I should be almost bound to meet him." "What's such a small place?" cried Beatrice, with emphasized despair. "Why, Neopalia, of course," said I. "Why should anybody except you be so insane as to go there?" she asked. "If he's the man I think, he comes from there," I explained, as I rose for the last time; for I had been getting up to go, and sitting down again, several times. "Then he'll think twice before he goes back," pronounced Beatrice, decisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island. Denny and I walked off together. As we went he observed: "I suppose that chap's got no end of money?" "Stefan--?" I began. "No, no. Hang it, you're as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean Bennett Hamlyn." "Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe." Denny looked sagacious. "He's very free with his dinners," he observed. "Don't let's worry about it," I suggested, taking his arm. I was not worried about it myself. Indeed, for the moment, my island monopolized my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs. Hipgrave said the engagement was based on "general suitability." Now it is difficult to be very passionate over that. "If you don't mind, I don't," said Denny, reasonably. "That's right. It's only a little way Beatrice--" I stopped abruptly. We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the menu card. I turned it over.