Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/266

 "Never saw him in my life," declared O'Rourke to himself, watching the tip of the newcomer's cigarette alternately redden and pale as the man applied himself to it.

"You don't know me?" the Irishman heard him ask at last, with the same careless, self-satisfied chuckle.

"I confess—" O'Rourke bowed distantly.

"My card." He pushed a slip of pasteboard across the table; O'Rourke took it and struck a match, which he first applied to the end of his cigar ere holding the card to the light. He read, in fine script:

Below which, in pencil, and hastily, had been scribbled half a dozen words: "Prince Vladislaus Viazma—incognito, if you please, mon ami."

"Yourself!" cried O'Rourke.

He put down the card; the man stretched forth his hand, took it up, and tore it into many infinitesimal fragments, keeping his dark eyes steadily to O'Rourke's.

"Myself," he admitted.

"But—but, Monsieur le Pri—" began O'Rourke.

"S-sh!"

The warning made the Irishman remember. "Oh, I beg pardon," he said, sitting back in his chair; then, "Well, I'm damned!" he announced. And, in a lower tone: "Faith, 'tis your beard, Monsieur Kozakevitch; it befooled me utterly."

"That is as it should be," returned the Russian, "when one travels incognito."

O'Rourke sucked strongly at his cigar, watching the smoke drift lazily upwards. "Ay!" he said aloud, but as