I agreed that it was, and retreated limply to the next table but two.
Our supper party should have been a dismal function, but somehow it was not. It was only reasonable to assume that some fell occurrence had taken place at the Embassy, but whatever its nature was, its witnesses began to pull themselves together under the magnetic influence of Mrs. Fitz. Her imperious gaiety, if it did not wholly banish Coverdale's abysmal gloom, did much to make it less. As for the other members of the party, conscience-stricken and uneasy at heart as they were, it was impossible not to respond to her power.
Even the Master of the Crackanthorpe, whose sense of humour is of a decidedly primitive order, indulged in a loud guffaw at one of her pungent remarks.
"Restrain yourself, my dear fellow, for heaven's sake!" I admonished him. "Dumbarton is already looking like doom. Your presence here has already cost the poultry fund fifty pounds, see if it hasn't. If he hears you laugh in that way he will close his covers and stick up wire."
"Don't care what he does!" said the Master of the Crackanthorpe, with an unnatural brightness in his eyes.
The siren had indeed a terrible power. The imperious glance, the distended nostril, the mobile lips, the skin of gleaming olive, the whole figure vivid with the entrancing charm of sex and the romance of ages—who were we, les hommes moyens sensuels, that we should have the strength of soul to resist it all? Nature had fashioned a sorceress; and when she takes the trouble to do that, she bestows, as a rule, a consciousness of power upon her chosen instrument, and the determination to wield it ruthlessly. We drained our glasses and basked in her smiles.
Our laughter waxed higher; our joy in her presence the more unguarded. I retained discretion enough to be aware that no detail of our conduct was lost upon the august party two tables away. Every guffaw of which we were guilty would be used against us. What had happened to the impeccable tradition of reticence and right thinking that men of known probity should yield with this publicity to the blandishments of a queen of the sawdust?
It was a desperately unlucky position; but we were committed to it irrevocably. Nothing now could save our good name among our neighbours. Yet that half-hour after midnight was crowded and glorious. Who were we, weak-willed mediocrities, that we should resist the moment? After the passes we had braved in the service of one so splendid and so ill-starred, after the long-drawn suspense we had endured, could we be insensible to the gay music, half-affectionate, half-insolent, of our names upon her lips?
Coverdale sat by the right of the sorceress, I by the left—responsible men—yet even with the Gorgon's eye of the Great Lady upon us, we were fain to publish to the world that we were neither less nor more than the bond-slaves of the circus rider from Vienna.