cafe was a low whitewashed room, open to the pavement at one side; it was crowded with little tables, and at one end an orchestra of four sallow girls smoked and fiddled and strummed.  All about her were the hard, keen men and women she had seen in the square, more men than women.  They talked to each other earnestly, in guarded voices, with eyes alert for eavesdroppers; nearly every one had an air of secrecy and caution.  They were of all the racial types she had ever seen.  Teuton, Latin and Slav, and variants and mixtures of these, murmured and whispered among themselves; only one of them was unmistakably English.

Miss Gregory had noticed him as soon as she entered, and her table was next to the one at which he sat with three others, who watched him while he talked, and said little.  He was a fair youth, with a bland, rather vacant face, and a weak, slack mouth.  Miss Gregory knew such faces among footmen and hairdressers, creatures fitted by their deficiencies to serve their betters.  He had evidently been drinking a good deal; the table before him was sloppy and foul, and there was the glaze of intoxication in his eyes.  But what arrested her was a touch of exaltation in him, a manner as of triumph.  For some reason or other he seemed radiant and glad.  The cause soon became apparent, for he fixed his unsure gaze on her, smiled ingenuously and attempted a bow.

“Pardon me,” he said, leaning carefully towards her.  “Pardon me, but the sight of an English lady——­”

Miss Gregory nodded.  “All right,” she said.

He hitched his chair closer to her; his three companions exchanged glances, and one of them made as though to nudge him, but hesitated and finally forbore.

“In. a general way,” said the youth confidentially, “I wouldn’t venture to speak to you.  But “—­and he broke into smiles—­“I’m on me way home myself.”

“I see,” answered Miss Gregory.

He beamed at her, fatuous and full of pride.  “On me way home,” he repeated.  “For good.  No more Africa for me.  I’ve ’ad just upon eight years of it—­eight years of sun an’ bugs an’ fever, and now I’m going home.”  He paused and looked at her impressively.  “I’ve made my pile,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Miss Gregory.  She saw the three others exchange another glance.

The English youth was rapt; for some moments his eyes were unseeing, and his lips moved without sound.  It was not difficult to see what home meant for him, a goal achieved at hazard, something familiar and sympathetic, worth all the rest of the world.  He came back to his surroundings with a long sigh.

“You don’t happen to know Clapham Junction, ma’am?” he suggested.  “Not the station, I don’t mean, but the place?  No?  Well, that’s where I’m off to.  I ’aven’t seen a tramcar for eight years; it’ll be queer at first, I expect.”  He looked round him slowly at the low bare room and the men in white clothes and the whispering night without.  “My mother takes lodgers,” he added inconsequently.