The tea room proved all that Lillian had promised. Fortunately, we were early enough to escape the noon hour rush and secure a good table near a window looking out upon the street.
"I like to look out upon the people passing, don't you?" Lillian said, as she seated herself.
"Yes, I do," I assented, and then we turned our attention to the menu cards.
"I'm fearfully hungry," Lillian announced. "I've been digging all morning. Oh! it's chicken pie here today." Her voice held all the glee of a gormandizing child. "I don't think these individual chicken pies they serve here can be beaten in New York," she went on. "You know the usual mess--potatoes and onions, and a little bit of chicken mixed up with a sauce they insult with the name gravy. These are the real article--just the chicken meat with a delicious gravy covering it, baked in the most flaky crust you can imagine. What do you say to those, with some baked potatoes, new lima beans, sliced tomatoes and an ice for dessert?"
"I don't think it can be improved upon," I said, gayly, and then I clutched Lillian's arm. "Look quickly," I whispered, "the other side of the street!"
Lillian's eyes followed mine to the opposite side of the street, where, walking slowly along, was the man I had seen in the hotel. He did not once look toward the tea room, but as he came opposite to it he turned from the pavement and crossed the street leisurely toward us.
"Oh! I believe he is coming in," I gasped, and my knees began to tremble beneath me.
"Suppose he is," Lillian snapped back. Her tone held a contemptuous impatience that braced me as nothing else could. "The man has a right to come in here if he wishes. It may be a mere coincidence, or he may have followed you. You're rather fetching in that little sport rig, my dear, as your mirror probably told you this morning. Unless he obtrudes himself there is nothing you can do or say, and if he should attempt to get fresh--well, I pity him, that's all."
Lillian's threatening air was so comical that I lost my nervousness and laughed outright at her belligerency. The laugh was not a loud one, but it evidently was audible to the man entering the door, for he turned and cast a quick, sharp look upon me before moving on to a table farther down the room. The waitress indicated a chair, which, if he had taken it, would have kept his back toward us. He refused it with a slight shake of the head, and passing around to the other side of the table, sat down in a chair which commanded a full view of us.