The two Englishmen at the table in the next window were talking in a comfortable, genial kind of way, and in voices quite loud enough to be overheard by their immediate neighbours. The soldier-like man sat back to back with Christabel, and she could not avoid hearing the greater part of his conversation. She heard with listless ears, neither understanding nor interested in understanding the drift of his talk--her mind far away in the home she had left, a desolate and ruined home, as it seemed to her, now that her aunt was dead. But by-and-by the sound of a too familiar name rivetted her attention. "Angus Hamleigh, yes! I saw his name in the visitor's book. He was here last month--gone on to Italy," said the soldier. "You knew him?" asked the other. "_Dans le temps._ I saw a good deal of him when he was about town." "Went a mucker, didn't he?" "I believe he spent a good deal of money--but he never belonged to an out-and-out fast lot. Went in for art and literature, and that kind of thing, don't you know? Garrick Club, behind the scenes at the swell theatres--Richmond and Greenwich dinners--Maidenhead--Henley--lived in a houseboat one summer, men used to go down by the last train to moonlit suppers after the play. He had some very good ideas, and carried them out on a large scale--but he never dropped money on cards, or racing--rather looked down upon the amusements of the million. By-the-by I was at rather a curious wedding just before I left London." "Whose?" "Little Fishky's. The Colonel came up to time, at last." "Fishky," interrogated the civilian vaguely. "Don't you know Fishky, alias Psyche, the name by which Stella Mayne condescended to be known by her intimate friends, during the run of 'Cupid and Psyche.' Colonel Luscomb married her last week at St. George's, and I was at the wedding." "Rather feeble of him, wasn't it?" asked the civilian. "Well, you see, he could hardly sink himself lower than he had done already by his infatuation for the lady. He knew that all his chances at the Horseguards were gone; so if a plain gold ring could gratify a young person who had been surfeited with diamonds, why should our friend withhold that simple and inexpensive ornament? Whether the lady and gentleman will be any the happier for this rehabilitation of their domestic circumstances, is a question that can only be answered in the future. The wedding was decidedly queer." "In what way?"