"Don't look round," he said. "The gent has got to pass our table. Just put it on record that I said I'd be damned."
The other two gazed at him vaguely and waited. A superb chef de restaurant came past, ushering a mixed pair of guests to a table on the other side of the room. One of them was a blonde girl, smartly dressed and rather good-looking in a statuesque way. The other was unmistakably the Baron von Dortvenn.
Simon could hardly keep his eyes off them. He barely trifled with his food, sipped his wine with no more interest than if it had been water, and lighted one cigarette from another with monotonous regularity. When the orchestra changed over to a dance rhythm, he pleaded that he was suffering from corns and left it to Peter Quentin to take Patricia on the floor.
The Baron was apparently not so afflicted.
He danced several times with his companion, and danced very badly. It was after a particularly elephantine waltz that Simon saw the girl, quite openly, dab her eyes with her handkerchief as she left the floor.
He leaned back even more lazily, with his eyes half closed and a cigarette merely smouldering in the corner of his mouth, and continued to watch. The couple were admirably placed for his observations — the girl facing him, and he saw the Baron in profile. And it became very plain to him that a jolly soirée was definitely not being had by all.
The girl and the Baron were arguing — not loudly, but very vehemently — and the Baron was getting red in the face. He was clearly working himself into a vicious rage, and wrath did not make him look any more savoury. The girl was trying to be dignified, but she was breaking down. Suddenly, with a flash of spirit, she said something that obviously struck home. The Baron's eyes contracted, and his big hands fastened on the girl's wrists. Simon could see the knuckles whitening under the skin in the savage brutality of the grip, and the girl winced. The Baron released her with a callous fling of her arm that spilled a fork off the table; and without another word the girl gathered up her wrap and walked away.
She came towards the Saint on her way to the door. He saw that her eyes were faintly rimmed with red, but he liked the steady set of her mouth. Her steps were a little uncertain; as she reached his table she swayed and brushed against it, slopping over a few drops from a newly-filled wine-glass.
"I'm awfully sorry," she said in a low voice.
The Saint snapped a match between his fingers, and held her eyes.