What he recounted was certainly romantic, though a little involved, for he was not a very good _raconteur_. However, in setting down this curious story--a story which shows that he was not altogether bad, and was a sportsman after all--I have rearranged his words in narrative form, so that readers of these curious adventures may fully understand. * * * * * "How horribly glum you are to-night, dear! What's the matter? Are you sad that we should meet here--in Paris?" asked a pretty girl. "Glum!" echoed the smooth-haired young man in the perfectly fitting dinner-jacket and black tie. "I really didn't know that I looked glum," and then, straightening himself, he looked across the _table a deux_ in the gay Restaurant Volnay at the handsome, dark-haired, exquisitely dressed girl who sat before him with her elbows on the table. "Yes, you really are jolly glum, my dear Old Thing. You looked a moment ago as serious as though you were going to a funeral," declared the girl. "The war is over, you are prospering immensely--so what on earth causes you to worry?" "I'm not worrying, dearest, I assure you," he replied with a forced smile, but her keen woman's intuition told her that her lover was not himself, and that his mind was full of some very keen anxiety. Charles Otley had taken her to a most amusing play at the Palais-Royal, a comedy which had kept the house in roars of laughter all the evening, and now, as they sat at supper, she saw that his spirits had fallen to a very low ebb. This puzzled her greatly. Peggy Urquhart, daughter of Sir Polworth Urquhart, of the Colonial Service, who until the Armistice had held a high official appointment at Hong Kong, was one of the smartest and prettiest young women in London Society. She was twenty-two, a thorough-going out-of-door girl who looked slightly older than she really was. Her father had retired as soon as war was over, and they had come to England. By reason of her mother being the daughter of the Earl of Carringford, she had soon found herself a popular figure in a mad, go-ahead post-war set. She had known Charlie Otley soon after she had left Roedene--long before they had gone out to Hong Kong--and now they were back they were lovers in secret. Charlie, who had been a motor engineer before he "joined up" in the war and got his D.S.O. and his rank as captain, had done splendidly. On being demobilized he had returned to his old profession, taking the managership of a very well-known Bond Street firm. The directors, finding in Otley a man who knew his business, whose persuasive powers induced many persons to purchase cars, and whose fearless tests at Brooklands were paragraphed in the daily newspapers, treated him most generously and left everything, even many of their financial affairs, in his hands.