The meal drew to a close happily in contrast to its beginning. Mrs. Sherman and her daughter rose to pass out into the reception room. Sherman and Kimball lingered.
Both began in unison, each somewhat furtive and shamefaced.
"Have you any money?" The queries were voiced as one. For an instant confusion; then the older man looked up into the younger's face--a bit flushed it was--and guffawed.
"Not a postage stamp, Willy! I guess we're both beggars, and if mother and Kitty didn't have five trunks between them this Swiss holdup man who says he's proprietor of this way-station hotel wouldn't trust us for a fried egg."
"Same here," admitted Kimball. "I'm badly bent."
"They can't keep us down--us Americans!" Sherman cheered, taking the youth's arm and piloting him out into the reception room. "We'll find a way out if we have to cable for a warship to come and get us."
Just as Sherman and Kimball emerged from the dining-room, there was a diversion out beyond the glass doors on Waterport Street. A small cart drew up; from its seat jumped a young woman in a duster and with a heavy automobile veil swathed under her chin. To the Arab porter who had bounded out to the street she gave directions for the removal from the cart of her baggage, two heavy suit-cases and two ponderous osier baskets. These latter she was particularly tender of, following them into the hotel's reception room and directing where they should be put before the desk.
The newcomer was Jane Gerson, Hildebrand's buyer, at the end of her gasoline flight from Paris. Cool, capable, self-reliant as on the night she saw the bastions of the capital's outer forts fade under the white spikes of the search-lights, Jane strode up the desk to face the smiling Almer.
"Is this a fortress or a hotel?" she challenged.
"A hotel, lady, a hotel," Almer purred. "A nice room--yes. Will the lady be with us long?"
"Heaven forbid! The lady is going to be on the first ship leaving for New York. And if there are no ships, I'll look over the stock of coal barges you have in your harbor." She seized a pen and dashed her signature on the register. The Shermans had pricked up their ears at the newcomer's first words. Now Henry J. pressed forward, his face glowing welcome.