V
Dwight-Rankin fell silent. The restaurant was emptying. Voices from distant tables approached ours and perished against the wall of silence that had risen upon the end of Dwight-Rankin’s relation. I could say nothing. At last Dwight-Rankin said: “Had poor Lady Surplice been alive now, she would have been staying at this very hotel. I would have been lunching with her. At this very moment I would have been enjoying a cigar over a nice spot of brandy.”
I ordered cigars and liqueurs. At that moment a lady entered the restaurant. She appeared to be a person of consideration. Waiters rushed towards her, maîtres d’hôtel bowed down before her. She waived them away. Her present concern appeared to have nothing to do with food, although her proportions were not those of one who had in the past indulged any aspirations to asceticism. Her face was large and good-humoured. When she smiled, her face was very large and very good-humoured indeed. She smiled now, bearing down on Dwight-Rankin. Silence perished around her. I prepared to fly. She enveloped the void about our table. The pearls about her throat were larger than her eyes, but her eyes shone more brilliantly than the diamonds on her hands. She strode into the silence like a warrior from Babel; and a forest of laughter stood on the site of the Ritz Hotel. She cried: “Dwight-Rankin! The very man I am looking for! Now I want you to be certain and come to——”
Dwight-Rankin indicated my presence.
“Mr.——” he said. “Mrs. Amp.”
“Say, listen, that’s not true! Mr.——, I certainly am glad to know you. How do you do, how do you do? You must come too, Mr.——. I have read your books. They are amazing, enchanting, universal. You are a genius. I tell the world so. I was telling the Duke of Mall and the Grand Duke Charles so only the other night. I said: ‘He is a genius.’ Now I want to tell you boys that to-morrow night I am throwing the finest party that has ever been dreamt of. It’s going to be just great. You boys have just got to come. I’ll tell the world that there’s nothing that’s not going to happen at that party. Muriel Surplice will be green. All her friends are coming. Everyone is coming. Say, listen, I have taken the whole Château de Madrid for the night and have changed it into a Venetian lagoon and at midnight I have engaged just the most complete circus to come and amuse us, as my point is, boys, that when one goes on a party one should just have everything from Mah Jongg to marmosets——”
She went, at last.
Dwight-Rankin said dreamily: “Have a spot of brandy?”
I choked. “You dare!” I said. “You dare to sit there and talk to me about spots of brandy after having palmed off on me that abominable rigmarole——”
“But it might have happened,” said Dwight-Rankin dreamily, waving a hand around the restaurant. “Perhaps it will happen. It certainly ought to happen. To all these charming people. Even lions will turn. However....”