Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but if
Mrs. Swinton had known--however, if it comes to that, I might just as
well exclaim, "If I had known, myself!"
Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, and
was drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. He
wanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I sat
down and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling with
equal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first _entree_
and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for some
reason, declared was "a lark") when two people came in and sat down at
the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs had been
tilted up in token of preengagement. The man--for the pair were man
and woman--was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark, and
he had good, regular features; he looked, also, as if he had a bit of
temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen him before,
and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run up against
him twice in St. James's Street that very day. The lady was handsome;
she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace. Her manner
was rather elaborate, and when she spoke to the waiter, I detected a
pronounced foreign accent.
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