The long road stretched shining and sleek. Not a living soul about. The little hotel offered a discreet welcome with plants in large green pots, one on either side of the door, a light warm enough to greet you and not too startling to frighten you, and the knob gleaming like an inviting eye. Harkness pushed open the door and entered. The hall was anæmic and dark, with the trap to catch visitors some way down on the right. There seemed to be no one about. Harkness pushed open a door and at once found himself in one of those little hotel drawing-rooms that are so peculiarly British, compounded as they are of ferns and discretion, convention and an untuned piano. In this little room a young man was sitting alone. Harkness knew at once that his search was over. He knew where it was that he had heard the name Dunbar before--this was his young man of the high road, the wandering seaman and the serious appointment, the young man of his expectant charge. There was yet, however, room for mistake and so he waited standing in the doorway. The young man was bending forward in a red plush armchair, eagerly watching. He recognised Harkness at once as his friend of the afternoon. "Hullo!" he said, and then hurriedly, "why, what _has_ been happening to you?" Harkness stepped forward into the room. "To me?" he said. "Why, yes. You're sweating. Your collar's undone. You look as though you had run a mile." "Oh, that!" Harkness blushed, fingering his collar that had broken from its stud. "I've been dancing." "Dancing?" "Yes. All round the town. Like the lion and the unicorn." "Oh, I heard you. On any other night----" He broke off. During this time he had been watching Harkness with a curious expression, something between eagerness, distrust, and an impatience which he was finding very difficult to conceal. He said nothing more. Harkness also was silent. They stared the one at the other, and could hear beyond the door the noises of the little hotel, a shrill female voice, the rattle of plates, some man's laughter. At last Harkness said: "Your name is Dunbar, isn't it?" The young man, instead of answering, asked his own question. "Look here, what the devil are you after? I don't say that it is or it isn't, but anyway why do _you_ want to know?" "It's only this," said Harkness slowly, "that if your name _is_ Dunbar, then I have a message for you." "You _have_?" He started out of his chair, standing up in front of Harkness as though challenging him. "Yes, a friend of yours asked me to come here, to meet you at half-past nine and tell you that she agrees to your proposal----" "She does? . . . At last!" Then his voice changed to suspicion. "You seem to be a lot in this. Forgive my curiosity. I don't want to seem rude, but meeting me on the hill this afternoon and now this. . . . I've got to be so _damn_ careful----"