“Oh—and Jonkin——”
“Yessir.”
“If there’s a beastly row in the railway-station and I’m in it, for God’s sake don’t look anxious, or as if you belong to me.”
“No, sir,” said Jonkin.
CHAPTER LXIX
Which treats of a Farewell Banquet to Departing Youth—whereat Gaston Latour glitters with at Hectic Glitter
The light of many candles set in a row along the white napery of the table showed but dimly in the large room, for the walls were hung with the sombre black cloth hangings that are drawn across the doors of churches in honour of the dead. The glint on plate and china and glass was chastened and modified by the solemn blackness of decorating black ribbons—large black bows upon the gilt necks of black bottles of champagne, narrow black bows upon the handles of knives and forks and stems of drinking glasses, and round salt-cellar and mustard-pot and cruet and centre dish. The menus were printed on large black-edged mourning-cards. Flower-bowls had given place to the painted wreaths of wire flowers that are placed in graveyards. The tablecloth was strewn with dead leaves.
The black figures of the waiters, who stood in solemn row to either side of the table, tricked out in the gloomy garb of hearse-lackeys, melted into the darkness behind them except for their pale faces, which caught the up-flung light from the candles that played upon chin and nostril and eye-pits, and sent shadows up their features, pronouncing the frown of expectancy with which they waited for the belated guests.