Typically aloof, a solitary young Englishman was sitting at a table
apart. He was evidently waiting for some one, for every now and again he
leaned forward and glanced impatiently up the street, then, apparently
disappointed, settled himself discontentedly to the perusal of the
Continental edition of the _Daily Mail_.

He was rather an arresting type. His lean young face looked older than
his five-and-twenty years would warrant. It held a certain recklessness,
together with a decided hint of temper, and he was much too good-looking
to have escaped being more or less spoiled by every other woman with whom
he came in contact. Like many another boy, Tony Brabazon had been rushed
headlong from a public school into the four years' grinding mill of the
war, thereby acquiring a man's freedom without the gradual preparation of
any transition period--a fact which, with his particular temperament, had
served to complicate life.

Physically, however, he had come through unscathed, and his white flannels
revealed a lithe, careless grace of figure. When he lifted his head to look
up the street there was a certain arrogance in the movement--a hint of
impetuous self-will that was attractively characteristic. The irritable
drumming of long, sensitive fingers on the table-top, while he scanned the
head-lines of the paper, was characteristic, too.

Suddenly a cool little hand descended on his restless one.

"You can stop beating the devil's tattoo on that table, Tony," said an
amused voice. "Here I am at last."

He sprang up, regarding the new-comer with a mixture of satisfaction and
resentment.