"Here," I answered, as the car came to a standstill outside the Cafe
Royal. "I'll go in and fetch him."
I found Mr. Parker seated at a table with two of the most villainous specimens of humanity I had ever beheld. They were of the same class as the men with whom he had been talking at the Milan, but still more disreputable. He welcomed me, however, without embarrassment.
"Just passing the time, my dear fellow!" he remarked airily. "Met a couple of acquaintances of mine. Will you join us?"
"Miss Parker is outside in the car," I explained. "If you don't mind I will go out and wait with her. You can join us when you are ready."
"Five minutes—not a moment longer, I promise!" he called out after me.
"Sorry you won't join us."
I took my place once more by Eve's side. Perhaps my tone was a little annoyed.
"Your father is in there," I said, "with two of the most disreputable- looking ruffians I have ever seen crawling upon the face of the earth. What in the world induces him to sit at the same table with them I cannot imagine."
"Necessity, perhaps," she remarked. "Very likely they are highly useful members of our industry."
Mr. Parker came out almost immediately afterward. I suggested the Ritz for luncheon. They looked at each other dubiously.
"To be perfectly frank with you, my dear fellow," Mr. Parker explained, as he clambered into the car and took the place I had vacated by his daughter's side, "it would give us no pleasure to go to the Ritz. We have courage, both of us—my daughter and I—as you may have observed for yourself; but courage is a different thing from rashness. We have been enjoying a very pleasant and not unlucrative time for the last six weeks, with the—er—natural result that there are several ladies and gentlemen in London whom I would just as soon avoid. The Ritz is one of those places where one might easily come across them."