“No, we won’t. My taxi and my dinner. Go and get your slacks on. I’ll run out and telephone for the car.”
§ 4
The Hotel Metropole at Brighton is a monstrous edifice of red-brick and iron balconies, which leers stolidly across an asphalt “Front” to the sea. The stone steps of its entrance, occupied of a morning by fat couples in wicker chairs, lead under a glass-roofed portico, through a revolving door past the mahogany “Reception Offices” to a narrow hall—fire-placed and crowded with comfortable Maplesque upholstery. Beyond, are marble corridors, lifts, and a dark lounge which opens out into a vast conservatory of glass-and-iron work, wherein the band plays and love-birds (some caged, some in coats and skirts) twitter behind dusty palm-trees.
In front of the fire-place in the hall, cocktail in hand, looking down on his wife’s blond head, stood “Weasel” Stark of the Gunners.
His nickname fitted the dapper fresh-complexioned little soldier well. He had reddish hair, inclined to curl: eyes of clear cold blue: flat auburn moustache over firm lips. The tight long-skirted tunic, beltless for dinner, fitted like a skin over the muscled shoulders, the in-curved back: his slacks fell straightly creased to shining brown shoes. His hands—clean capable hands—showed a hint of freckling, the suspicion of auburn fluff. The domed forehead betrayed intelligence. A brand-new D.S.O. ribbon completes the picture.
Alice Stark (once, as Alice Sewell, the object of Jack Baynet’s none-too-stable affections) was a comfortable little person, brown-eyed, a little rabbity about the mouth. Her low dress, blue and girlish, revealed excellent shoulders, firm arms and slim hands.
The pair had been married six months: three of which the husband had spent on active service. A wound in the foot, now almost healed, had re-united them.
“Almost time for dinner, I think,” said the Colonel, putting his empty glass on the mantelshelf behind him.
“Yes, dear.” Alice looked up; saw, pushing squirrel-wise through the revolving door, a familiar figure.
The figure came towards her, and she recognized—after a minute’s hesitation at the disguise of khaki—our Mr. Jameson.