Then, to his utter amazement, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's eyes met his. She slid her arm from her husband's, and made her way quickly through the crowd to John. He felt his heart-beat quicken. A moment later Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was holding out her hand towards him. She flashed a smile into his face.
"My dear Mr. Treves," she said, in a voice that was low and intimate, "I have been looking for you all the evening!"
A moment later she was shaking hands with John.
"I must fly now," she added, "but you must come and see me to-morrow—six o'clock."
A moment later she was hurrying back towards her husband, her gown shimmering and gleaming as she went. There was something in the palm of John's hand—something that had passed from Mrs. Beecher Monmouth to himself.
Holding his hand below the table and free from observation, John saw that the something Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had passed into his hand was a slip of paper on which was pencilled: "Imperator—three o'clock to-morrow. Route 28."
John was conscious of a quite definite thrill. His nerve was of the best; he had accepted the momentous slip of paper without any outward sign of disturbance. Indeed, he had smiled back into Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's eyes in a manner that had won that lady's sincerest approbation. Nevertheless, he was not inwardly calm. He felt that fate, or destiny, had seized him suddenly in its relentless grip. The slip of paper was still in his right hand, concealed beneath the level of the table. For some minutes he drew at his cigarette, then, carefully taking out the pocket-book, laid the slip in its leaves, and replaced the book in the inner breast pocket of his coat. For some minutes longer he retained his seat, leaning back in the delicate gilt chair. His gaze wandered among the brilliant and fashionable crowd moving about him. The gentle murmur of music mingled still with the chatter of voices, and twenty feet away he caught the gleam of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's ear-rings, the scintillation of her superb diamond necklace. She was talking to her yellow-skinned and unprepossessing husband, but her attention was entirely and solely fixed upon John.
Their eyes met, and John was obliged to concede, for the second time, that she was a woman of exceptional beauty. The art of her coiffeur, and, possibly, the art of her complexion expert, had wrought its best for her. Nevertheless, she would have stood out among any assemblage of young and prepossessing women. Her husband quite visibly adored her, and every word she condescended to transmit to him was received with a quick, responsive smile on his part.
John was thinking rapidly, wondering and speculating. Was it possible that Beecher Monmouth knew of the existence of the little slip of paper that reposed in his pocket-book? Beecher Monmouth, who had sat on numerous committees, who had more than once stood in the running for an under-secretaryship? The thing seemed utterly incredible!
As these things flashed through John's mind, realisation slowly came to him that Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was observing him with close intensity, under slightly lowered lids.