looked away into the darkness once more, and then back into my
face. By this time I knew that he had made up his mind. He was more
like himself again.

"Monsieur Rotherby," he said, "if I have hesitated at all, it was for
your sake. You are a gentleman of great position. Afterwards you might
feel sorry to think that you had been in such a place, or in such
company."

I patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.

"My dear Louis," said I, "you need have no such fears about me. I am a
little of an adventurer, a little of a Bohemian. There is no one else
who has a claim upon my life, and I do as I please. Can't you tell me
a little more about this mysterious cafe?"

"There is so little to tell," Louis said. "Of one thing I can assure
you,--you will be disappointed. There is no music, no dancing. The
interest is only in the people who go there, and their lives. It may
be," he continued thoughtfully, "that you will not find them much
different from all the others."

"But there is a difference, Louis?" I asked.

"Wait," he answered. "You shall see."

The cab pulled up in front of a very ordinary-looking cafe in a side
street leading from one of the boulevards. Louis dismissed the man
and looked for a moment or two up and down the pavement. His caution
appeared to be quite needless, for the thoroughfare was none too well