Two waiters dashed heroically to the work of rescue and salvage. The culprit muttered a few words of apology. The lady was heard to remark something about the bad luck attendant upon spilling the salt, smiled upon the two diligent waiters, but flashed a quick look at her companion. It was a look that possessed more than one quality. It contained a suggestion of warning, a hint of rebuke and a touch of fierce annoyance. The man sat sullenly in his seat, and Peter’s eyes never left his face. For exactly what reason he didn’t quite know—he felt almost compelled to it. His senses seemed to be jingling a refrain to him. It rang repeatedly through his brain and its purpose was, “Well—I’m damned.” At the same time he tried to persuade himself that it was just an ordinary case of carelessness and that he had drawn liberally upon his imagination to connect the incident with the words he had used.
“What’s amiss, Daventry?” broke in Marriott, cutting his reverie abruptly short. “You look as though you have seen a ghost!”
Peter jerked himself back to the normal with a tremendous effort.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered. “That little incident surprised me—that was all.”
But his eyes strayed back to the other table, and as they did so the eyes of the man there met his and held them for a brief moment truculently and challengingly. The woman appeared to be urging her companion to do something that he apparently did not favor. He shook his head doubtfully, as though he were questioning the wisdom of what she said. Peter turned to Marriott. “I’ll be getting along now, if you don’t mind. Gustave! Bring me my bill! What’s the damage?”
“I’m nearly through myself,” responded Marriott. “I’m coming along too! Which way are you going?”
“Up West. And you aren’t, probably! Thank you, Gustave!”
“No! I’m bound in the other direction—you’ve said it! Cheerio!”
Peter waved a hand to his retreating figure and collected his change. As he did so, the couple from the other table made their way past his table on their journey out. The man was in front—the woman followed closely on his heels. As they passed, for some reason almost unknown to himself, Peter strained his ears to catch, if at all possible, any stray fragment of their conversation. He was successful. The woman was speaking in a low-toned voice, but it was not too low to carry to his ears.
“Take my advice,” Peter heard her say—“let’s go to-morrow—not to-day.”