I whistled for a hansom, and, as the cab turned up Whitehall, Big Ben chimed a quarter to eight.
CHAPTER II
THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER
Dinner was served by the time I reached the Cecil, and, as I entered the salon, and made my way towards the table where our seats were, I saw that my fears were realized. Anne was angry, and would not lightly forgive me for what she evidently considered an all but unpardonable breach of good manners.
I know Mary had arranged that Anne and I should sit together, but now the chair reserved for me was on Mary’s left. Her husband sat at her right, and next him was Anne, deep in conversation with her further neighbor, who, as I recognized with a queer feeling of apprehension, was none other than Cassavetti himself!
Mary greeted me with a comical expression of dismay on her pretty little face.
“I’m sorry, Maurice,” she whispered. “Anne would sit there. She’s very angry. Where have you been, and why didn’t you telephone? We gave you ten minutes’ grace, and then came on, all together. It wasn’t what you might call lively, for Jim had to sit bodkin between us, and Anne never spoke a word the whole way!”
Jim said nothing, but looked up from his soup and favored me with a grin and a wink. He evidently imagined the situation to be funny. I did not.