He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coat that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "All right," had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coat told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge of compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and lined with silk.
They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly moving four-bladed propeller.
"Now we can talk," Romarin said. "I'm glad, glad to see you again,
Marsden."
It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears. It shocked Romarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things so accentuated by the passage of time. Romarin's own brow was high and bald and benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver.
"You're glad, are you?" said Marsden, as they sat down facing one another. "Well, I'm glad—to be seen with you. It'll revive my credit a bit. There's a fellow across there has recognised you already by your photographs in the papers…. I assume I may…?"
He made a little upward movement of his hand. It was a gin and bitters Marsden assumed he might have. Romarin ordered it; he himself did not take one. Marsden tossed down the apéritif at one gulp; then he reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and—Romarin remembered how in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that—began to throw bullets of bread into his mouth. Formerly this habit had irritated Romarin intensely; now … well, well, Life uses some of us better than others. Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle. Marsden, poor devil … but the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin's meditation. He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, and the two men ate for some minutes in silence.
"Well," said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping his white moustache, "are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?"
Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of his frayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs of the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips.
"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging among memories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may be pleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine. Might as well be making new ones … I'll drink whiskey and soda."
It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp.