It was late in the evening, only four or five couples, or an occasional group of three or four, lingered at the small, round, flower-decked tables.
"Shall we come here?" said Goldstein rather morosely.
He selected a table in a remote corner, and as she took her seat, Alex perceived that they were within sight of the alcove where sat Queenie Torrance with her partner, a young Danish diplomat whom Alex knew only by sight.
"Who is that?" she asked almost involuntarily, as Goldstein's lowering gaze followed the direction of her own.
The young man beside her needed no more to make him launch out into emphatic speech.
Alex was half frightened, as she watched the glow in his eyes and the rapid gesticulations of his hands, as though emotion had startled him into a display of the racial characteristics that he habitually concealed so carefully.
He told her crudely that he adored Queenie, and that it drove him nearly mad to see her in the company of other men.
"But why don't you ask her to marry you?" exclaimed Alex innocently.
Goldstein stared at her.
"I have asked her fourteen times," he said at last with a slight gasp.