But here Verplank intervened. “This lady had been divorced from me before she married Barouffski.”
De Fresnoy, over another oyster, turned to him again. Yet any surprise he may have experienced he was too civil to display.
“Ah, indeed!” he replied. He looked as though he were about to add something, but refraining, he paused.
Verplank helped him out. “You are thinking perhaps that there may have been circumstances that rendered further acquaintance between us inadmissible. I may assure you that there are none and, without wishing to intrude my private affairs, I may assure you also that to this hour I am unaware why the divorce was obtained. This lady had no grievance of any kind against me and I had none whatever against her.”
Pontifically, in his deepest note, Silverstairs threw out: “In the States they give you a divorce for a Yes or a No.”
“For married people,” de Fresnoy remarked, yet so pleasantly that the sarcasm was lost, “America is the coming country.”
As he spoke, the fat waiter, after supervising the removal of the first dish, produced, with the air of a conjurer, another. It was an omelette, golden without, frothy within.
De Fresnoy glanced up. “Countermand the pear. Instead, bring me paper and ink.”
“Perfectly, monsieur le baron.”
Slowly de Fresnoy attacked the food. After a mouthful he said to Silverstairs: