Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/151



how he hoped to spend the precious hour after nine that evening, when he would see Miss Varris again, he could not say. But he was preparing for it long before the time to leave his hotel for the Tudor.

"I have always said," he reflected severely to himself, "that a healthy man should normally and naturally be careful of his appearance. But if he begins to be cautious of it—well, I begin to suspect him."

He smiled down tolerantly at the heap of evening ties he had tried in turn and discarded.

"And when he knows, by having haunted the Tudor Hotel for eight counted hours to-day, that it is a twelve minutes' walk from here at the most extravagant estimate, and, when he still has one whole, unelapsed hour 129