[XII]
At the glass door, which a chasseur opened, Barouffski stopped, spoke to the man, gave him an order. As the others, conducted by a maître d’hôtel, approached a table, a fat woman in a pulpit charged them, before they were seated, with the use of the silver and the cloth.
Beyond, a band of Bohemians, costumed in crimson, were loosing, with nervous and dirty fingers, whirlwinds of notes. The atmosphere, filled with vibrations, fevered by the fury of the violins, dripped with the scent of flowers, with the bouquet of burgundies, the smell of champagne, the odour of tobacco and food.
At adjacent tables were demi-reps and foreigners, mondaines and clubmen, a sprinkle of the cream of the venal, the exotic and the ultra-chic, whom omnibuses and waiters, marshaled by maîtres d’hôtel, served with the same deference and zeal.
For the Barouffski party, these latter had turned two tables into one, at which Violet Silverstairs occupied one end, Leilah the other. Violet had Barouffski at her right, Tempest at her left, while Leilah had Silverstairs at her left and d’Arcy at her right, a disposition natural enough and otherwise fortuitous which placed Tempest next to d’Arcy, with Barouffski and Silverstairs opposite.
In the rising storm of the music, Leilah turned to d’Arcy. What she was saying the others could not hear and all, save Silverstairs, who was munching a hors d’œuvre, addressed themselves to Violet.
Presently, in a lull of the gale, Tempest would have tried to talk to this woman who, in abandoning her Madonna air had now the merit of suggesting both the Chimera and the Sphinx, but something in her attitude to d’Arcy prevented. It was not, to employ a vulgarism, that she was making eyes at the man, but she was obviously permitting him to make eyes at her.
D’Arcy was seated, his arms on the table, talking in her face. His plate was empty. A chaudfroid had been served. He had refused it. A mousse had followed. He had refused that also. Over the glasses at his side he had put a hand. It seemed a pose of his not to eat or to drink that he might do nothing but talk.