"All that I have to say," Selingman went on, "is not yet said. This opportunity of meeting you is too precious to be wasted. Come. As we walk there are certain questions I wish to put to you." They passed within a few feet of where Norgate was lying. He closed his eyes and held his breath. It was not until their figures were almost specks in the distance that he rose cautiously to his feet. He made his way back to the club-house by another angle, gained his taxicab unobserved, and drove back to Ostend. * * * * * Towards evening Norgate strolled into one of the cosmopolitan bars at the back of the Casino. The first person he saw as he handed over his hat to a waiter, was Selingman, spread out upon a cushioned seat with a young lady upon either side of him. He at once summoned Norgate to his table. "An _apéritif_," he insisted. "Come, you must not refuse me. In two hours we start. We tear ourselves away from this wonderful atmosphere. In atmosphere, mademoiselle," he added, bowing to the right and the left, "all is included." "It is not," Norgate admitted, "an invitation to be disregarded. On the other hand, I have already an appetite." Selingman thundered out an order. "Here," he remarked, "we dwell for a few brief moments in Bohemia. I do not introduce you. You sit down and join us. You are one of us. That you speak only English counts for nothing. Mademoiselle Alice here is American. Now tell us at once, how have you spent this afternoon? You have bathed, perhaps, or walked upon the sands?" Norgate was on the point of speaking of his excursion to Knocke but was conscious of Selingman's curiously intent gaze. The spirit of duplicity seemed to grow upon him. "I walked for a little way," he said. "Afterwards I lay upon the sands and slept. When I found that the steamer was still further delayed, I had a bath. That was half an hour ago. I asked a man whom I met on the promenade where one might dine in travelling clothes, lightly but well, and he sent me here--the Bar de Londres--and here, for my good fortune, I am." "It is a pity that monsieur does not speak French," one of Selingman's companions murmured. "But, mademoiselle," Norgate protested, "I have spoken French all my life. Herr Selingman here has misunderstood me. It is German of which I am ignorant." The young lady, who immediately introduced herself as Mademoiselle Henriette, passed her arm through Selingman's. "We dine here all together, my friend, is it not so?" she begged. "He will not be in the way, and for myself, I am _triste_. You talk all the time to Mademoiselle l'Américaine, perhaps because she is the friend of some one in whom you are interested. But for me, it is dull. Monsieur l'Anglais shall talk with me, and you may hear all the secrets that Alice has to tell. We," she murmured, looking up at Norgate, "will speak of other things, is it not so?"