He discovered Vance in a corner of the smoking-lounge. The woman had
disappeared.

Vance thanked him politely. "My aunt is so forgetful sometimes," he
said, and took them with a covert eagerness that did not escape the
other's observation. He folded up the sheets and put them carefully in
his pocket. On one there was an ink-sketched map, crammed with detail,
that might well have referred to some portion of the Desert. The points
of the compass stood out boldly at the bottom. There were involved
geometrical designs again. Henriot saw them. They exchanged, then, the
commonplaces of conversation, but these led to nothing further. Vance
was nervous and betrayed impatience. He presently excused himself and
left the lounge. Ten minutes later he passed through the outer hall, the
woman beside him, and the pair of them, wrapped up in cloak and ulster,
went out into the night. At the door, Vance turned and threw a quick,
investigating glance in his direction. There seemed a hint of
questioning in that glance; it might almost have been a tentative
invitation. But, also, he wanted to see if their exit had been
particularly noticed--and by whom.

This, briefly told, was the first manoeuvre by which Fate introduced
them. There was nothing in it. The details were so insignificant, so
slight the conversation, so meagre the pieces thus added to Henriot's
imaginative structure. Yet they somehow built it up and made it solid;
the outline in his mind began to stand foursquare. That writing, those
designs, the manner of the man, their going out together, the final
curious look--each and all betrayed points of a hidden thing.
Subconsciously he was excavating their buried purposes. The sand was
shifting. The concentration of his mind incessantly upon them removed it