the smoking-room--room B on the left as you go in--of the Talleyrand.

He was there one evening after an excellent dinner taken with humorous
resignation, smoking the largest cigar the waiter could supply, when
Claude de Chauxville happened to have nothing better or nothing worse to
do.

De Chauxville looked through the glass door for some seconds. Then he
twisted his waxed mustache and lounged in. Steinmetz was alone in the
room, and De Chauxville was evidently--almost obviously--unaware of his
presence. He went to the table and proceeded to search in vain for a
newspaper that interested him. He raised his eyes casually and met the
quiet gaze of Karl Steinmetz.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," said Steinmetz.

"You--in London?"

Steinmetz nodded gravely.

"Yes," he repeated.

"One never knows where one has you," Claude de Chauxville went on,
seating himself in a deep arm-chair, newspaper in hand. "You are a bird
of passage."

"A little heavy on the wing--now," said Steinmetz.