In two minutes he was once more in the street.
Within five a cab deposited him in front of the Restaurant Au Printemps, an institution of midnight New York whose title for distinction resided mainly in the fact that it opened its upper floors for the diversion of "members" about the time when others put up their shutters.
Lanyard's advent occurred at the height of its traffic. The dining rooms on the street level were closed and unlighted: but men and women in pairs and parties were streaming across the sidewalk from an endless chain of motor-cars and being ground through the revolving doors like grist in the hopper of an unhallowed mill, the men all in evening dress, the women in garments whose insolence outrivalled the most Byzantine nights of L'Abbaye Thêlème.
Drawn in with the current through the turnstile door, Lanyard found himself in an absurdly little lobby thronged to suffocation, largely with people of the half-world—here and there a few celebrities, here and there small tight clusters of respectabilities making a brave show of feeling at ease—all waiting their turn to be lifted to delectable regions aloft in an elevator barely big enough to serve in a private residence.
For a moment Lanyard lingered unnoticed on the outskirts of this assemblage, searching its pretty faces for the prettier face he had come to find and wondering that she should have chosen for her purpose with him a resort of this character. His memory of her was sweet with the clean smell of the sea; there was incongruity to spare in this atmosphere heady with the odours of wine, flesh, scent, and tobacco. Perplexing….
A harpy with a painted leer and predacious eyes pounced upon him, tore away his hat and coat, gave him a numbered slip of pasteboard by presenting which he would be permitted to ransom his property on extortionate terms.
And still he saw no Cecelia Brooke, though his aloof attitude coupled with an intent but impersonal inspection of every feminine face within his radius of vision earned him more than one smile at once furtively provocative and unwelcome.
By degrees the crowd emptied itself into the toy elevator—such of it, that is, as was passed by a committee on membership consisting of one chubby, bearded gentleman with the look of a French diplomatist, the empressement of a head waiter and the authority of the Angel with the Flaming Sword. Personae non gratae to the management—inexplicably so in most instances—were civilly requested to produce membership cards and, upon failure to comply, were inexorably rejected, and departed strangely shamefaced. Others of acceptable aspect were permitted to mingle with the upper circles of the elect without being required to prove their "membership."
In the person of this suave but inflexible arbiter Lanyard identified a former maître d'hôtel of the Carlton who had abruptly and discreetly fled London soon after the outbreak of war.
He fancied that this one knew him and was sedulous both to keep him in the corner of his eye and never to meet his regard directly.