“What, is it in the papers already?” he exclaimed.
It was Molly’s turn to stare.
“Then you knew it? Who told you? Oh, of course, that man Des Louvres.”
“Who told you?” demanded Alistair. He noticed that Molly was rouged to the eyebrows, and that she had been drinking.
“Mr. Mendes told me,” she said in a hard, defiant voice. “He called here just after you had gone. He wants us to go and dine with him.”
“You can go if you like,” Alistair said listlessly.
The dinner with Mendes took place three nights afterwards. It was given in London’s most expensive restaurant, and Lord and Lady Alistair were the only guests. Mendes was as cool and composed as ever, chatting with his guests as if no interruption had ever occurred in their intercourse. Molly was voluble and restless, emptying her glass as often as the waiter filled it with champagne. Alistair ate and drank little, and hardly spoke except when his host addressed to him a direct question. He felt strangely out of place, as he sat there, looking abstractedly from one to the other of his companions, and wondering what he was doing there between them, and how it was all going to end.
Suddenly, just as the sweets were being brought round, there was a stir outside, and a man came in hurriedly with a sheaf of papers under his arm. He went through the long, brilliantly lit saloon, leaving a paper on each little table, and as he approached Mendes he said in his ear in a subdued voice:
“The Queen is dead, sir.”
Alistair slowly filled his own glass with wine, lifted it up, and emptied it.