in Great Central Hotel lift would greatly value opportunity of
obtaining introduction.

This exhausted the joys of the Agony Column for the day, and West,
like the solid citizen he really was, took up the Times to discover
what might be the morning's news. A great deal of space was given
to the appointment of a new principal for Dulwich College. The
affairs of the heart, in which that charming creature, Gabrielle
Ray, was at the moment involved, likewise claimed attention. And
in a quite unimportant corner, in a most unimportant manner, it was
related that Austria had sent an ultimatum to Serbia. West had
read part way through this stupid little piece of news, when
suddenly the Thunderer and all its works became an uninteresting
blur.

A girl stood just inside the door of the Carlton breakfast room.

Yes; he should have pondered that despatch from Vienna. But such
a girl! It adds nothing at all to say that her hair was a dull
sort of gold; her eyes violet. Many girls have been similarly
blessed. It was her manner; the sweet way she looked with those
violet eyes through a battalion of head waiters and resplendent
managers; her air of being at home here in the Carlton or anywhere
else that fate might drop her down. Unquestionably she came from
oversea--from the States.

She stepped forward into the restaurant. And now slipped also into
view, as part of the background for her, a middle-aged man, who
wore the conventional black of the statesman. He, too, bore the
American label unmistakably. Nearer and nearer to West she drew,