CHAPTER II.
AN ANTHEM INTERVENES Upon the entrance of Hardiman's party a wrinkle was smoothed away from the forehead of a _maitre d'hotel_.
"So! You have come!" he cried.

"I began to despair." "You have kept my table ?" Sir Charles insisted.
"Yes, but with what an effort of diplomacy!"; and the _maitre d'hotel_ led his guests to the very edge of the great balcony.

Here the table was set endwise to the balustrade, commanding the crowded visitors, yet taking the coolness of the night.

Hardiman was contented with his choice of its position.

But when he saw his guests reading the cards which assigned them their places, he was not so contented with the order of their seating.
"If I had known an hour before!" he said to himself, and the astounding idea crept into his mind that perhaps it was, after all, a waste to spend so much time on the disposition of a dinner-table and the ordering of food.
However, the harm was done now.