She stood up silently, and Wolfenden, with slow fingers, raised her cloak from the back of the chair and covered her shoulders. She thanked him softly, and turning away, walked down the room followed by the two men. In the ante-room Mr. Sabin stopped. "My watch," he remarked, "was fast. You will have time after all for a cigarette with your friends. Good-night." Wolfenden had no alternative but to accept his dismissal. A little, white hand, flashing with jewels, but shapely and delicate, stole out from the dark fur of her cloak, and he held it within his for a second. "I hope," he said, "that at any rate you will allow me to call, and say goodbye before you leave England?" She looked at him with a faint smile upon her lips. Yet her eyes were very sad. "You have heard what my inexorable guardian has said, Lord Wolfenden," she answered quietly. "I am afraid he is right. We are wanderers, he and I, with no settled home." "I shall venture to hope," he said boldly, "that some day you will make one--in England." A tinge of colour flashed into her cheeks. Her eyes danced with amusement at his audacity--then they suddenly dropped, and she caught up the folds of her gown. "Ah, well," she said demurely, "that would be too great a happiness. Farewell! One never knows." She yielded at last to Mr. Sabin's cold impatience, and turning away, followed him down the staircase. Wolfenden remained at the top until she had passed out of sight; he lingered even for a moment or two afterwards, inhaling the faint, subtle perfume shaken from her gown--a perfume which reminded him of an orchard of pink and white apple blossoms in Normandy. Then he turned back, and finding Harcutt and Densham lingering over their coffee, sat down beside them. Harcutt looked at him through half-closed eyes--a little cloud of blue tobacco smoke hung over the table. Densham had eaten little, but smoked continually. "Well?" he asked laconically. "After all," Wolfenden said, "I have not very much to tell you fellows. Mr. Sabin did not call upon me; I met him by chance in Bond Street, and the girl asked me to supper, more I believe in jest than anything. However, of course I took advantage of it, and I have spent the evening since eleven o'clock with them. But as to gaining any definite information as to who or what they are, I must confess I've failed altogether. I know no more than I did yesterday." "At any rate," Harcutt remarked, "you will soon learn all that you care to know. You have inserted the thin end of the wedge. You have established a visiting acquaintance." Wolfenden flicked the end from his cigarette savagely. "Nothing of the sort," he declared. "They have not given me their address, or asked me to call. On the contrary, I was given very clearly to understand by Mr. Sabin that they were only travellers and desired no acquaintances. I know them, that is all; what the next step is to be I have not the faintest idea."