Their shallow views and general mental vapidity, if I may put it so, jarred upon me. After spending ten minutes in their company, I went into the dining-room and lunched alone. Then I read the newspapers, dozed in an armchair for half-an-hour, and finally, at about four o'clock, returned to my flat in King Street. John met me on the stairs. "Ah! there you are, sir," he exclaimed. "Did you meet them?" "Meet whom?" "Why, they haven't been gone not two minutes, so I thought you might have met them in the street, sir. They waited over half-an-hour." "But who were they? What were their names?" I asked, irritated at John for not telling me at once the names of the visitors. "A young lady and a gentleman--there's a card on your table, sir; I can't recall the names for the moment," he said, wrinkling his forehead as he scratched his ear to stimulate his memory. "The gentleman was extremely tall, quite a giant, with a dark beard." I hurried up the stairs, for the lift was out of order, and let myself into my flat with my latch key. On the table, in my sitting-room, was a lady's card on a salver. "Miss Thorold." In Vera's handwriting were the words, scribbled in pencil across it-- "_So sorry we have missed you_." CHAPTER SIX. THE HOUSE IN THE SQUARE. I admit that I was dumbfounded. Vera and her mysterious friend were together, calling in the most matter-of-fact way possible, and just as though nothing had happened! It seemed incredible! All at once a dreadful thought occurred to me that made me catch my breath. Was it possible that my love was an actress, in the sense that she was acting a part? Had she cruelly deceived me when she had declared so earnestly that she loved me? The reflection that, were she practising deception, she would not have come to see me thus openly with the man with the black beard, relieved my feelings only a little. For how came she to be with Davies at all? And again, who was this man Davies? Also that telephone message a fortnight previously, how could I account for it under the circumstances? "Oh, come to me--do come to me! I am in such trouble," my love had cried so piteously, and then had added: "You alone can help me." Some one else, apparently, must have helped her. Could it have been this big, dark man? And was he, in consequence, supplanting me in her affection? The thought held me breathless. At times I am something of a philosopher, though my relatives laugh when I tell them so, and reply, "Not a philosopher, only a well-meaning fellow, and extremely good-natured"--a description I detest. Realising now the uselessness of worrying over the matter, I decided to make no further move, but to sit quiet and await developments. "If you worry," I often tell my friends, "it won't in the least help to avert impending disaster, while if what you worry about never comes to pass, you have made yourself unhappy to no purpose."