Somewhere back in his mind was the impression that O'Dowd had spoken of Pierre the cook, a private secretary and male attendant who looked after Mr. Curtis. Then there was Peter, the regular chauffeur, whom he had not seen, and doubtless there were able-bodied woodchoppers and foresters besides. Not forgetting the little book-agent! It suddenly occurred to him that he was surrounded by a company of the most formidable character: no less than twenty men would be a reasonable guess if he were to include O'Dowd, De Soto and Van Dyke.
Much to his disappointment, he was not placed near Miss Cameron at table. Indeed, she was seated as far away from him as possible. He sat at Mrs. Collier's right. On his left was Mrs. Van Dyke, with Miss Cameron at the foot of the table flanked by O'Dowd and De Soto. Van Dyke had nearly the whole of the opposite side of the table to himself. There was, to be sure, a place set between him and De Soto, for symmetry's sake, Barnes concluded. In this he was mistaken; they had barely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:
"Mr. Curtis's secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has his dinner with my brother and then, poor man, comes in for a brief period of relaxation. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor Mr. Loeb doesn't have much time to himself. It seems to me that my brother is at his best when his health is at its worst. You may be interested to know, Mr. Barnes, that he is writing a history of the Five Nations."
"Indians, you know," explained Van Dyke.
"A history of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas, and their 'Long House' should be of great value, Mrs. Collier," said Barnes, a trifle didactically. "When does he expect to have it completed?"
"'Gad, you know a little of everything, don't you?" said Van Dyke, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and eyeing Barnes fishily. ("Awfully smart chap," he afterwards confided to O'Dowd.) "If he lives long enough, he'll finish it in 1999," he added, lifting his voice above Mrs. Collier's passive reply out of which Barnes gathered the words "couple" and "years."
It is not necessary to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, to repeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say, for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the second sprightly, and the third atrocious.
Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was a tall, spare man of thirty, pallidly handsome, with dark, studious eyes and features of an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. His teeth were marvellously white, and his slow smile attractive. When he spoke, which was seldom unless a remark was directed specifically to him, his voice was singularly deep and resonant. More than once during the hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed a stubborn, ever-recurring opinion that the man was not a Jew. Certainly he was not an American Jew. His voice, his manner of speech, his every action stamped him as one born and bred in a land far removed from Broadway and its counterparts. If a Jew, he was of the East as it is measured from Rome: the Jew of the carnal Orient.
And as the evening wore on, there came to Barnes the singular fancy that this man was the master and not the servant of the house! He could not put the ridiculous idea out of his mind.
He was to depart at ten. The hour drew near and he had had no opportunity for detached conversation with Miss Cameron. He had listened to her bright retorts to O'Dowd's sallies, and marvelled at the ease and composure with which she met the witty Irishman on even terms. Her voice, always low and distinct, was never without the suggestion of good-natured raillery; he was enchanted by the faint, delicious chuckle that rode in every sentence she uttered during these sprightly tilts.