Their eyes met. She had turned halfway round in her chair and was looking at him with wide-open, unbelieving eyes. He felt himself suddenly tied hand and foot to the chair. Now that he had found her he could do no more than stare at her in utter bewilderment. He had come tilting at windmills.
The flush deepened in her cheek as she turned her attention to the dessert that had just been set down before her. She was very quiet, in marked contrast to her mood of the moment before. 110
Fairfax made a remark which set the others to laughing. She did not smile, but toyed nervously with the dessert fork. Under cover of the laughter he leaned over and whispered, an anxious, troubled note in his voice:—
“I’ll call the head waiter and have him put out before he does anything crazy.”
“Put out?” she repeated. “Why, what do you think he’d try to do?”
“He’s got an ugly look in his eye. I tell you, he’ll create a scene. That’s what he’s here for. You remember what happened––”
She laughed shrilly. “He won’t shoot any one,” she said in his ear. “Harvey create a scene! Oh, that’s rich!”
“He hasn’t forgotten the thrashing I gave him. He has been brooding over it, Nellie.” Fairfax was livid about the eyes.
“Well, I respect him for trying to thrash you, even though he got the worst of it.” She looked again in Harvey’s direction. He was still staring steadily at her. “He’s all alone over there and he’s miserable. I can’t stand it. I’m going over to sit with him.”