"I don't want to see him. . . . I have to see him sometimes in the course of duty. . . . I don't like to . . . ."
Sylvia said:
"You," in a tone of very deep contempt. "You only carry chocolate boxes to flappers. . . . How can he come across you in the course of duty? . . . You're not a soldier!"
Perowne said:
"But what are we going to do? What will he do?"
"I," Sylvia answered, "shall tell the page-boy when he comes with his card to say that I'm engaged. . . . I don't know what he'll do. Hit you, very likely. . . . He's looking at your back now. . . ."
Perowne became rigid, sunk into his deep chair.
"But he couldn't!" he exclaimed agitatedly. "You said that he was playing the part of Jesus Christ. Our Lord wouldn't hit people in an hotel lounge. . . ."
"Our Lord!" Sylvia said contemptuously. "What do you know about our Lord? . . . Our Lord was a gentleman. . . . Christopher is playing at being our Lord calling on the woman taken in adultery. . . . He's giving me the social backing that his being my husband seems to him to call for."
A one-armed, bearded maître d'hôtel approached them through groups of arm-chairs arranged for tête-à-tête. He said: