"Someone smeared a French pastry on the woodwork," Toffee commented dryly.
"I have served the gentlemen in the hall tea for three hours," the maid sighed, shoving her hair out of her eyes. "They are the devil himself. They play funloving games, like children." She paused and sighed again. "Dinner is served, I presume."
The congressman boosted himself out of his chair. "I will speak to those funloving gorillas in person," he said. He turned to Toffee. "Are you hungry, my dear?"
"Famished," Toffee said, and looked at Marc. "And you?"
"Yeah," Marc said dolefully. "My wife is gone, my business is ruined, my world is about to go up in smoke—but what the heck!"
He turned a sardonic eye on the congressman. "Lead on," he said. "Play, gypsy, play!"
Toffee sat down gingerly on the corner of the bed and surveyed the congressman's best guest room with voluptuous appreciation. It was a production in lace and rococo gilt in which the curly-cued, beflounced bed was lost like a fireworks display in a gaudy sunset. Toffee only regretted that such splendor, for her part, was only to be wasted.
It was not that she would not have willingly stayed the night there, had she the choice—but she had not. Being a thought projection of Marc's conscious mind, she would not exist in the material world when Marc slept. She had to return to the land of his imagination until he awoke again; then she would rematerialize wherever she chose. She looked at the bed, imagined the roseate picture of herself amongst the linens and laces, and sighed a sigh of regret.
She removed herself from the bed, went to the door and listened. There were sounds; the guard was still there. The other guard would be posted at Marc's door.