Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/199

 "Where was I to find you, mon ami? I knew not, and so waited here."

"A sure gamble," approved O'Rourke, looking out upon the ever-changing, kaleidoscopic pageant upon the sidewalks, where, it seemed, all Paris was promenading itself. "If one sits here long enough," explained the Irishman, "sure he'll see every one in the wide world that's worth the seeing—as a better man man I said long ago."

"It is so," agreed Chambret.

He summoned a waiter for O'Rourke's order; and that important duty attended to, turned to find the Irishman's eyes fixed upon him soberly, the while he caressed his clean, firm chin.

Chambret returned the other's regard, with interest; smilingly they considered one another. Knowing each other well, these two had little need for evasiveness of word or deed; there will be slight constraint between men who have, as had Chambret and O'Rourke, fought back to back, shoulder to shoulder, and—for the matter of that—face to face.

The Frenchman voiced the common conclusion. "Unchanged, I see," said he, with a light laugh.

"Unchanged—even as yourself, Chambret."

"The same wild Irishman?"

"Faith, yes!" returned O'Rourke. He continued to smile, but there was in his tone a note of bitterness—an echo of his thoughts, which were darksome enough.

"The same!" he told himself. "Ay—there's truth for ye, O'Rourke!—the same wild Irishman, the same improvident ne'er-do-well, good for naught in all the world but a fight—and growing rusty, like an old sword, for want of exercise!"

"And ye, mon ami?" he asked aloud. "How wags the world with ye?"