Now, this was the first time that my mistress had plucked up courage to take a meal downstairs since we had come to the Cecil.
I wondered how she'd been getting on. I must see!
So, still in my outdoor things, I passed the glass doors. I walked into the big tea-room. There were palms, and much gilding, and sofas, and dark-eyed, weary-looking waiters wheeling round little carts spread with dainties, and offering the array of éclairs and flat apple-cakes to the different groups—largely made up of American visitors—who were sitting at the plate-glass-topped tables.
I couldn't see Million—Miss Million's party—anywhere at first!
I looked about....
At the further end of the place a string band, half-hidden behind greenery, was playing "I Shall Dream of You the Whole Night." Peals of light laughter and ripples of talk came from a gay-looking group of frocks—with just one man's coat amongst them—gathered around a table near the band.
I noticed that the eyes of everybody within earshot were turning constantly towards this table. So I looked, too.
At whom were they all staring? At a plump, bright-haired woman in all-white, who was obviously entertaining the party—to say nothing of the rest of the room.
She had a figure that demanded a good deal of French lingerie blouse, but not much skirt. The upright feather in her hat was yellow; jewelled slides glittered in her brass-bright hair; her eyes were round and very black.
She reminded me of a sulphur-crested, white cockatoo I had seen at the Zoo.