an expensive parlour, decorated in white and gold, with sofas of crimson damask; but there was something lonely in that grandeur and the place had become mainly a receptacle for their tall trunks, with a half-emptied paper of chocolates or marrons glacés on every table. After young Probert's first call his name was often on the lips of the simple trio, and Mr. Dosson grew still more jocose, making nothing of a secret of his perception that Francie hit the bull's-eye "every time." Mr. Waterlow had returned their visit, but that was rather a matter of course, because it was they who had gone after him. They had not gone after the other one; it was he who had come after them. When he entered the hotel, as they sat there, this pursuit and its probable motive became startlingly vivid.
Delia had taken the matter much more gravely than her father; she said there was a great deal she wanted to find out. She mused upon these mysteries visibly, but without advancing much, and she appealed for assistance to George Flack, with a candour which he appreciated and returned. If he knew anything he ought to know who Mr. Probert was; and she spoke as if it would be in the natural course that he should elicit the revelation by an interview. Mr. Flack promised to "nose round"; he said the best plan would be that the results should "come back" to her in the Reverberator; he appeared to think that the
