“Spoken with your usual candor, my dear Briton!” she exclaimed. “Well, I will gratify your curiosity. This, as you see, is not a popular supping place. A few people come in—mostly those who for some reason or other don't feel smart enough for the big restaurants. The people from the theatres come in here who have not time to change their clothes. As you perceive; the place has a distinctly Bohemian flavor.”
Tavernake looked around.
“They seem to come in all sorts of clothes,” he remarked. “I am glad.”
“There is a man now in London,” Elizabeth continued, “whom I am just as anxious to see as I am to find my sister. I believe that this is the most likely place to find him. That is why I have come. My father was to have been here to take me, but as you heard he has gone out somewhere and not returned. None of my other friends were available. You happened to come in just in time.”
“And this man whom you want to see,” Tavernake asked, “is he here?”
“Not yet,” she answered.
There were, indeed, only a few scattered groups in the place, and most of these were obviously theatrical. But even at that moment a man came in alone through the circular doors, and stood just inside, looking around him. He was a man of medium height, thin, and of undistinguished appearance. His hair was light-colored and plastered a little in front over his forehead. His face was thin and he walked with a slight stoop. Something about his clothes and his manner of wearing them stamped him as an American. Tavernake glanced at his companion, wondering whether this, perhaps, might not be the person for whom she was watching. His first glance was careless enough, then he felt his heart thump against his ribs. A tragedy had come into the room! The woman at his side sat as though turned to stone. There was a look in her face as of one who sees Death. The small patch of rouge, invisible before, was now a staring daub of color in an oasis of ashen white. Her eyes were as hard as stones; her lips were twitching as though, indeed, she had been stricken with some disease. No longer was he sitting with this most beautiful lady at whose coming all heads were turned in admiration. It was as though an image of Death sat there, a frozen presentment of horror itself!
CHAPTER XXIII. ON AN ERRAND OF CHIVALRY
The seconds passed; the woman beside him showed no sign of life. Tavernake felt a fear run cold in his blood, such as in all his days he had never known. This, indeed, was something belonging to a world of which he knew nothing. What was it? Illness? Pain? Surprise? There was only his instinct to tell him. It was terror, the terror of one who looks beyond the grave.