He sat very still after that, until she had sipped the last drop of black coffee out of the little blue cup, until she had pulled the hat down over the golden wings and wrapped the sapphire scarf about her white throat and wedged “Alice” back into the brief case, and smiled at Jules, and smiled at Geneviève, and smiled at the gray kitten, and vanished through the brown door.
He sat even stiller for quite a while after she had gone; and then suddenly bounded to his feet and flung out of the room before the startled Jules could ask him whether there was not something that he preferred to the untouched Bénédictine.
It was drizzling in the gray street and he turned his face to it as though it were sunshine; he glanced in the direction of the large dark office, and dismissed it with a light-hearted shrug. Business—business, by the Lord! Not while there was still a spot to dream in undisturbed. He raced up the apartment-house stairs three at a time, scorning the elevator, and was in the living room before the petrified Harishidi could do more than leap goggle-eyed from his post by the Florentine chest. Harishidi had obviously been indulging his passion for Occidental music, though you would not have gathered it from the look of horrified rebuke that he directed at the Renaissance treasure’s spirited rendition of the “Buzz Town Darkies’ Ball.” The look conveyed the unmistakable impression that Harishidi had done everything in his power to prevent the misguided instrument from breaking out in this unfortunate manner during his master’s absence, but that his most earnest efforts had proved of no avail. Benedick, however, was unimpressed.
“For the love of God, shut off that infernal noise!”
Harishidi flung himself virtuously on the offending treasure, and Benedick stood deliberating for a moment.
“Bring me the records out of the drawer—no, over to the couch—I’m half dead for sleep after that damned party. Get my pipe; the briar, idiot. Matches. This the lot Mrs. Benedick sent?”
Harishidi acknowledged it freely, and Benedick shuffled rapidly through the black disks. Cello rendition of “Eli Eli”; the Smith Sisters in a saxophone medley; highly dramatic interpretation of the little idyll from Samson et Delilah; “Kiss Your Baby and Away We Go” specially rendered by Dolpho, the xylophone king—yes, here it was.
“An Elizabethan Song, sung by Mr. Roger Grahame of the Santa Clara Opera Company.”
“Here you are, Hari; put this on your infernal machine. Take the telephone off the hook and give me another of those cushions. Where’s an ash tray? All right—let her rip!”
“I play her now?” demanded the incredulous Harishidi.