Silverstairs, bored by the entertainment, anxious only to get away where he could have a quiet drink, tugged at his moustache and with unconscious reminiscence answered:
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t care what happens as long as it doesn’t happen to me.”
[V]
“There are too many of us,” Verplank, the day following, found himself saying to Silverstairs.
The two men were lunching at Voisin’s.
The charming resort which, since the passing of Véry, of Véfour and the Maison Dorée, has become the ultimate refuge of the high gastronomic muse of Savarin and of Brisse was, on this forenoon, filled with its usual clientèle:—old men with pink cheeks, young women with ravishing hats, cosmopolitan sportsmen, ladies of both worlds, assortments of what Paris calls High Life and pronounces Hig Leaf.
Without, a fog draped the windows, blurred the movement of the street, transforming it into a cinematograph of misty silhouettes. But within, the brilliant damask, the glittering service, the studied excellence of everything, produced an atmosphere of wealth and ease.