“I have been put in the position of having to meet an elderly lady--a near relative--here for a more or less intimate conversation. I don’t think she realized, in making the appointment, how little privacy you have a right to in a hotel. It is very long since she has been in a great city. Will you pardon the--the really unpardonable--liberty of my asking if you are likely to be here much longer? I mean--ought I to arrange to take her elsewhere in the hotel when she comes? She will be here in a moment.” It was a dreadful thing to have had to do, and, if he judged by what the veil showed of the lady’s face, it couldn’t have been worse done. She looked dismayed. Peter was angry: so angry that he managed to stop just where he had stationed himself before her; so angry that he didn’t deprecate, that he simply set his teeth and waited. There was nothing he could do now, he felt, to convince her that she hadn’t been insulted. She lifted her veil ever so little, just freeing her lips, slightly constricted by its tight-drawn mesh. As she did so, she both rose and spoke. “Aren’t you Peter Wayne?” He bowed, relieved. If they had a ground of acquaintance, he could perhaps cover it all up, make it plausible, get rid of her on some dishonest, hilarious pretext. “I am.” He waited; there was no use in pretending that he remembered her. The veil was lifted farther, then a hand was laid on his shoulder and a voice sounded in his astonished ears. “Turn to the light, my son, and let me look at you. I’ve not had a photograph, you remember, since you were a child.”