changed.  Of the men no one was noticeable, but Violet Oliver, as he remembered, would hardly have chosen a noticeable man.  She would have chosen someone with great wealth and no ambitions, one who was young enough to ask nothing more from the world than Violet Oliver, who would not, in a word, trouble her with a career.  She might have chosen anyone of her companions.  And then her eyes travelled round the room and met his.

For a moment she gazed at him, not seeing him at all.  In a moment or two consciousness came to her.  Her brows went up in astonishment.  Then she smiled and waved her hand to him across the room—­gaily, without a trace of embarrassment, without even the colour rising to her cheeks.  Thus might one greet a casual friend of yesterday.  Linforth bethought him, with a sudden sting of bitterness which surprised him by its sharpness, of the postscript in the last of the few letters she had written to him.  That letter was still vivid enough in his memories for him to be able to see the pages, to recognise the writing, and read the sentences.

“I shall always think of the little dreams we had together of our future, and regret that I couldn’t know them.  That will always be in my mind.  Remember that!”

How much of that postscript remained true, he wondered, after these three years.  Very little, it seemed.  Linforth fell to speculating, with an increasing interest, as to which of the men at her table she had mated with.  Was it the tall youth with the commonplace good looks opposite to her?  Linforth detected now a certain flashiness in his well grooming which he had not noticed before.  Or was it the fat insignificant young man three seats away from her?

A rather gross young person, Linforth thought him—­the offspring of some provincial tradesman who had retired with a fortune and made a gentleman of his son.

“Well, no doubt he has the dibs,” Linforth found himself saying with an unexpected irritation, as he contemplated the possible husband.  And his friend broke in upon his thoughts.

“If you are going to eat any dinner, Linforth, it might be as well to begin; we shall have to go very shortly.”

Linforth fell to accordingly.  His appetite was not impaired, he was happy to notice, but, on the whole, he wished he had not seen Violet Oliver.  This was his last night in London.  She might so easily have come to-morrow instead, when he would already have departed from the town.  It was a pity.

He did not look towards her table any more, but the moment her party rose he was nevertheless aware of its movement.  He was conscious that she passed through the restaurant towards the lobby at no great distance from himself.  He was aware, though he did not raise his head, that she was looking at him.

Five minutes afterwards the waiter brought to him a folded piece of paper.  He opened it and read: 

“Dick, won’t you speak to me at all?  I am waiting.—­VIOLET.”