Alexander the Great's clients consisted apparently of respectable employés of lower middle-class business houses. If they had not all been employed, Loveland reflected, they would not have been in such desperate haste; but then he had not yet studied the American temperament, north of "Dixie."
Bill Willing's habit was, when paid for his day's work, to find a seat in a small adjacent park and play with the children whose out-door nursery it was. There by witchcraft or wizardry his money was frequently wheedled from his pocket; and often by the time he returned to Alexander the Great's for early dinner, he was practically a pauper. It was after such conjuring tricks that he migrated at nightfall to his "country estate," as he called Central Park, and got through the hours as best he could, till half-past six next morning.
Today, however, he was encouraged to linger in the warm restaurant, Alexander's daughter being supreme in authority during her father's absence. Isidora saw that Bill had the food he liked best for breakfast; a steaming pile of buckwheat cakes trimmed round the edges with crisp brown lace, and oozing syrup at every pore. Also she sent him a copy of "New York Light" without having even glanced at the front page, although a "gentleman friend" who had paid her a great deal of attention last summer was at the beginning of his trial for a really exciting murder.
Isidora dreaded, yet longed, to see the messenger return, and at sight of the slim figure in blue bobbing past the big window she started so violently as to cover the floor with an avalanche of waiters' checks which had littered her father's desk.
The youth entered the restaurant and went straight to the table where "Mr. Gordon" still sat. Isidora could not hear a word of the conversation which ensued, but from under her eyelashes she contrived to see, without seeming to see, how the messenger shook his head in answer to questions, and how Mr. Gordon's face grew ever more blank until it hardened into an expression of hopelessness. She was sure that the boy had brought neither letter nor telegram, and that something had gone very wrong indeed with her mysterious guest's calculations.
An inspiration prompted her hastily to beckon Bill, who was earning the continued hospitality of the restaurant by trotting in with clean plates from the kitchen and trotting back with dirty ones.
"Here, take this, and pay the messenger," she whispered. "I guess your friend's had a disappointment."
Bill obeyed, but did not at once come back. When the youth had been paid, and had shot away up the street as if through a pneumatic tube, Bill lingered in consultation with the pale young man at the table.
"Something's up," Isidora said to herself, in an agony of curiosity. But what the "something" was, she could not find out till breakfast was over, and the room clear of customers.
It was by this time after nine, a late hour at Alexander the Great's restaurant, which the regular clients were deserting now for business; but others might drop in for a piece of pie at any moment, so Isidora caught at a propitiously quiet instant as she would have flown at a moving electric tram.