With the sudden salvation of Paris at a critical moment and the ensuing German retreat from the Marne, the cloud of foreboding was partially lifted from me, without however quickening any fresh growth of interest within. Yet I listened to Dr Wayne's daily budget of news, and comported myself with conventional intelligence on the rare occasions that I found myself brought into contact with the Doctor's friends, who apparently regarded me as an interesting case, a sort of God's fool, in Dr Wayne's charge, in which impression I was naturally averse to undeceive them, for such a view at present suited my comfort and convenience. September was now well advanced, and I much doubt if ever I should have achieved the desire, still less the determination, to leave a place I felt too languid to dislike but for a critical incident which I was half-hoping, half-dreading to occur. One afternoon Dr Wayne entered my room in an excited state and with unwonted heat began to dilate on a curious adventure he had just experienced in the hotel itself. It seems that on his return he noticed in the vestibule of the hall two diminutive swarthy foreigners seated in the middle of a miscellaneous mass of rugs, shawls, laces, cushions, ornaments of brass and other objects, all of Oriental appearance, though the Doctor assured me of obvious British or German manufacture. Dr Wayne, who, as I have already hinted, was an enthusiastic patriot, became somewhat nettled on seeing all this trumpery displayed for sale during so serious an epoch, albeit several expensively dressed women were already hovering round the men and their wares, like moths attracted to some sugary compound. The vendors, who had graceful manners and spoke fluent though broken English, called themselves vaguely "Indians," which statement on Dr Wayne's searching questions they qualified by remarking they were loyal subjects of the Indian Empire. The Doctor's rising suspicions were by no means appeased by this explanation; but on finding that the hotel servants as well as the hovering females resented his method of cross-examination, and were inclined to champion these Eastern peddlers, he ultimately desisted and retreated upstairs to vent his tale into my ears. I listened to him with that polite aloofness which has grown to be a second habit of nature with me, at first with faint attention, but ere long as he proceeded with intense though concealed agitation. For the detailed description of the pair of merchants in the hall below promptly convinced me of the accuracy of my first impression--that these Indian peddlers were no other than envoys from Meleager who had traced their erring King hither.