“No.” The artist laughed. “We will take a chance on my remaining myself until after dinner, but as soon as convenient——”
“To-morrow,” promised Steele, “we go to the cabin.”
CHAPTER III
Perhaps, the same futile vanity that led Mr. Bellton to import the latest sartorial novelties from the Rue de la Paix for the adornment of his person made him fond of providing foreign notables to give color to his entertainments.
Mr. Bellton was at heart the poseur, but he was also the fighter. Even when he carried the war of political reform into sections of the town where the lawless elements had marked him for violence, he went stubbornly in the conspicuousness of ultra-tailoring. Though he loved to address the proletariat in the name of brotherhood, he loved with a deeper passion the exclusiveness of presiding as host at a board where his guests included the “best people.”
Señor Ribero, who at home used the more ear-filling entitlement of Señor Don Ricardo de Ribero y Pierola, was hardly a notable, yet he was a new type, and, even before the ladies had emerged from their cloak-room and while the men were apart in the grill, the host felt that he had secured a successful ingredient for his mixture of personal elements.
After the fashion of Latin-American diplomacy, educated in Paris and polished by great latitude of travel, the attaché had the art of small talk and the charm of story-telling. To these recommendations, he added a slender, almost military carriage, and the distinction of Castilian features.
A punctured tire had interrupted the homeward journey of Steele and Saxon, who had telephoned to beg that the dinner go on, without permitting their tardiness to delay the more punctual.