It was really a small square room quite separate from the main part of the Peacock Cabaret except that there was no wall between. The head waiter guided Merriam to the seat at the far end of the table. Thus when he sat down he would be facing the main dining room, visible to all its occupants, yet screened from them by the table and his own guests about that table. It was really an excellent device for displaying him in public and still protecting him from close inspection.
In a moment the whole party had arrived and been seated.
A canapé was being served, and Alicia at his end of the table and her father at the other end were starting conversation. Merriam glanced across the board at Mollie June. For some reason a charming girl never looks more lovely than at table. She looked up and caught his gaze. Her face was grave. He thought she looked wistful. For a moment only he met her eyes, then turned to reply to a remark of Alicia's. Somehow his spirits soared. He plunged into the conversation with a zest which he had hardly known since his fraternity days. Mollie June said little, but she laughed at the stories and seemed to become excited and happy. She was content, perhaps, to enact the rôle of the gallery to which Merriam was playing with such excellent effect. As for Rockwell and Aunt Mary, they sat by in serene content: the affair was going well; as long as that was the case they need not exert themselves.
The mildly uproarious party undoubtedly attracted the desired amount of attention from the main dining room. Eyes were turned and necks craned, and couples and groups that passed the alcove almost invariably slowed their steps to stare. Some dozens of men who had heard the stories of the real Norman's whereabouts were convinced that these were false, at least in part; by the witness of their own eyes they knew that the Senator was that evening at any rate in the bosom of his family at the hotel. They could be relied upon to assert as much in all parts of the city on the following day.
Only one outsider ventured to intrude upon the party and submit Merriam to the ordeal of closer inspection, and he got no nearer than the length of the table. This was the Colonel Abbott whom Merriam had so perilously encountered at the very beginning of his play-acting the night before. Merriam remembered him vividly, called him by name, and replied cordially to his expressions of pleasure at finding him recovered from his threatened indisposition. So that danger passed, and the table, after a brief exchanging of relieved glances, recovered its gayety, perhaps with some accentuation.
A little later came a reporter. Merriam professed that he had "nothing to say." Asked if it was true that he was to speak at the Reform League luncheon on the morrow, he replied, with an inner quailing but with outward composure, that he was.
The reporter turned to Mr. Wayward. Was it true that he intended to make a contribution to the campaign fund of the Reform League? Mr. Wayward's joviality suffered an eclipse. His eyes fell. But on raising them he encountered a glance from his daughter that can only be described as stern, and promptly admitted that it was true.
The reporter tried Rockwell, but the latter shook his head so indomitably that the interviewer at once abandoned him and passed to Mayor Black. That gentleman promptly and as it were automatically gave utterance to several eloquent phrases, too meaningless to be recorded. Even the reporter neglected to make notes of them, and looked about the table for other prey. Finding none, he excused himself with the remark, "I am making note of the names, of course," and disappeared.
Once more the conspiratorial table drew a long breath and endeavoured to recover its festive mood, but before much progress had been made in that direction a bell boy came with a note addressed to Senator Norman and asking that he and Mr. Rockwell come to Room D, one of the private dining rooms.
Merriam passed the note to Rockwell and then to Aunt Mary, and the three prime conspirators stared at one another. None of them knew the handwriting, which was poor and hurried and in pencil.