[CHAPTER XXVI]
EARL'S COURT
In the morning, with my shaving water, was brought a note in a dashing feminine handwriting. It was from the little American prima donna to say she was sorry that she had forgotten, but she was engaged to dine with some friends who were leaving England, and would I take her out some other night instead; and she considerately suggested two evenings on which she should have known that I would be out of town for Goodwood.
I felt inclined to reply, like Uncle Gregory, that I knew those friends—"they cum fr' Sheffield"; but I did nothing worse than to write that of course I would take her out with pleasure on the first evening she had vacant when I came back to town.
I had arranged to drive her down to Earl's Court to give her dinner at the Quadrant, to take her on to the lawn of the Welcome Club for coffee and liqueurs, and then to go the round of the side shows. It is not easy in August to find a lady to take out to dinner at twelve hours' notice. Mrs. Charlie Sphinx was at Carlsbad, and Miss Dainty was taking a holiday from the wear and tear of "resting" at some French watering-place. I sent a note round by a cab to Sir George to ask if I might take Miss Brighteyes out to dinner; but the man came back saying that the house was all shut up, and that he could make no one hear.
At the worst, I thought, I could pick up a man at the club; but the few men in the smoking-room had either to go back to their wives or had some dinner engagement. So it came that I started alone for Earl's Court.
I had written for a table to be kept for me at eight o'clock, and a few minutes before the hour I disembarked at the entrance by the lake. It was between the lights, and the great white globes aglow with electricity looked garish against the delicate opal of the sky, and cast strange reflections on the water. I paused for a moment to listen to the blue-coated musicians on their island bandstand commencing the march from "Aïda," and then went past the bronze Gordon on his camel, past a buffet where a little crowd were dining frugally off sandwiches and pale ale, over the long bridge, through the gardens, and at last to the restaurant. In front of the broad awning which stretches before the restaurant, standing by a red rope, which keeps the public from coming too near, are two janitors, who, in their dark blue and peaked caps, look rather like warders: a clerk at a desk, with a big open book before him, sits opposite to the entrance.
Had I booked a table? the clerk asked me as I came up. Certainly I had. I had written that I wanted a particularly good table at eight o'clock. The clerk looked up at a tall gentleman with a reddish beard and moustache who stood behind him, M. Gerard, Messrs. Spiers and Pond's manager, and the gentleman with the beard looked at his watch. It was a quarter-past eight. M. Gerard explained that no tables were kept after eight, and drew a vivid picture of a well-dressed but famished crowd standing outside at the red ropes and threatening to tear down the place if they were not admitted to the vacant places. My table had been given to an eminently respectable couple who did not look as if they would tear down anything, and I was about to go over the way to the Welcome, in wrath, when it was found that there was a table for four, right up against the barrier, vacant; and I settled down in solitary dignity at one of the best tables in the place. A smart young waiter, in white apron and brown coat with pink facings, put the menu in front of me. I ordered a pint of Deutz and Gelderman to be put in ice, and then looked round me.