“I’ll have a certified copy of the statement sent to you Mr. Grey,” the Chancellor volunteered. “In it you will have evidence that is beyond all dispute. I congratulate you on securing such a complete refutation of so baseless and yet so dangerous a slander.”
XXI
The contrast between the tiny white room in the hospital with the dire shadow of the Grim Reaper hovering over the narrow cot bed, and the spacious, brilliant salon of the hotel, where life, assertive, aggressive, almost obtrusive, was dominant, had something of a dazzling effect on Carey Grey, and he paused a moment on the threshold, with blinking eyes, in an effort to adjust his vision to the sudden change of scene.
There was a momentary lull in the merriment that smote him as the door swung open in answer to his knock, and then the cannonade of voices—of cries of surprise, of welcoming greetings, of laughter—was resumed, and Nicholas Van Tuyl rose from his place at the round table, which, with its snowy damask dotted with pink-shaded candles and dappled with silver and crystal, seemed like the centre of some giant flower of which the men and women about it were the variegated petals.
“My friends,” cried the host, raising his voice and hand simultaneously for silence, “I have pleasure in presenting to you my future son-in-law, Mr. Carey Grey, of New York.”
The next instant everybody was shouting at once. The men were up and bearing down on the newcomer in a solid phalanx, and Lady Constance and Mrs. Dickie were waving their napkins and fairly shrieking their congratulations. When at length something like order reigned again, Frothingham found his champagne glass and proposed a toast:
“To the bride-elect,” he cried. “‘She moves a goddess and she looks a queen.’”
Grey’s response was brief but enthusiastic, and the significance of the quotation with which he closed it evoked an outburst of applause that must have been heard as far as the Kursaal, two blocks away.