"If you will excuse me for one moment," Deane said, passing on ahead, "I will just see that the table is all right. I telephoned to Gustave, but even a _maître d'hôtel_ forgets sometimes." He looked into the room, and nodded to the presiding genius who came hurrying up. The table was there, duly reserved, and covered with the dark red roses which he had ordered. He turned to Mrs. Elstree and the others who were following her. "I think we can go in," he said. "I hope you people have not lost all your appetites waiting for me." Lady Olive looked at him a little curiously as she took the seat at his left, hers by unspoken consent as his fiancée. "My dear Stirling," she whispered, "have you had a very trying morning? You look somehow as though you had been worried." He hesitated. "Well," he answered, "scarcely that, perhaps. I had rather a bad hour or so. Things don't go always our way, you know, in the city, even when one is most prosperous." "You are foolish to worry," she said calmly. "Half the people in the world spoil their lives by giving way to that sort of thing. I should have thought that your temperament would have saved you from that." Deane smiled. "Remember," he said, "that I have been in other places when I might have been with you, and excuse me." "You are much too gallant," she said, with a little laugh, "to argue with seriously." "By the bye," Major Elstree asked, "has anyone seen a special edition? I wonder if the Rowan case is finished." Deane set down the wineglass which he had just raised to his lips. "The verdict was given just as I left the city," he answered. "Rowan was found guilty!" CHAPTER VI AN IMPERIOUS DEMAND There was a little murmur of interest. On the whole, although the result of the trial had seemed fairly certain, everyone was surprised. "Guilty of murder or manslaughter?" Major Elstree asked. "Of murder," answered Deane. "There was not even a recommendation to mercy." Lady Olive looked reproachfully at him. "My dear Stirling, you really shouldn't have told us at luncheon time. If I hadn't been so very hungry, I am sure it would have taken my appetite away. He was such a good-looking fellow, and he has been so brave all through the trial." "Brave or callous, do you think?" Major Elstree asked. "Brave, I think," Julia Raynham declared, leaning forward in her place. "I went to the trial the first day. He followed every question that was asked, and he was always making suggestions to his solicitor. I think when one understands like that, when one's intellect is working all the time, that you cannot call it callousness." "I agree with you," Lady Olive declared. "I was there myself, and except that he looked so ill, he seemed quite indifferent, and absolutely free from nervousness. Yet I am quite sure that he realized his position. My dear Stirling, how thoughtful of you to remember the _Homard Americaine_. I adore hot lobster, don't you, Julia?" "Delicious!" Julia murmured.