The unwelcome intruder was Mr. John Van Blarcom, my late fellow-voyager,
and he accepted the encounter with a better grace than I.
"Why, hello!" he greeted me cheerfully. "Going through to France? Glad
to see you--but you're about the last man that I was looking for. I got
the idea somehow you were planning to stop a while in Rome."
I returned his nod with a curtness I was at no pains to dissemble. Then
I reproached myself, for it was undeniable that on the _Re d'Italia_ he
had more than once stood my friend. He had offered me a timely warning,
which I had flouted; he had obligingly confirmed my statement in my
grueling third degree. Yet despite this, or because of it, I didn't like
him; nor did I like his patronizing, complacent manner, which seemed
fairly to shriek at me, "I told you so!"
"Changed my plans," I acknowledged with a lack of cordiality that failed
to ruffle him. He had hung up his overcoat and installed himself facing
me, and was now making preparations for lighting a fat cigar.
"Well," he commented, with a chuckle of raillery, after this operation,
"the last time I saw you you were in a pretty tight corner, eh? You
can't say it was my fault, either; I'd have put you wise if you'd
listened.
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