“Pardon, Monsieur Garford, one moment—excuse me—it will be better if I change your place.”
“This is all right,” he said, without much attention.
“I think you would prefer—that is—Mr. Garford—forgive me—there is some one quite near——”
Dangerfield looked up. Two tables away, directly facing him, in a party of ten or a dozen, his former wife was sitting.
“No; this will do,” he said coldly and sat down.
The test had brought back the sang-froid of the man of the world. He took his seat in a most natural manner, aware of what eyes must be watching his every expression, and, slipping his gardenia in his buttonhole, said, with a smile for the public, as he studied the menu which Mr. Cornelius had commanded:
“Really, de Retz, you are a connoisseur—the choice is perfection, just right—perfectly balanced. Excuse my moment’s distraction. It happens that my divorced wife is sitting at the table opposite.”
Mr. Cornelius hastily suggested changing seats.
“No; not for anything in the world,” said Dangerfield, with a grim smile. “Go on talking—Oysters from Ostend, petite marmité, filet de sole Café Riche—Bravo!”
Mr. Cornelius, thus encouraged, broke into an enthusiastic discussion of each dish, explaining that he had chosen filet de sole Café Riche, rather than Marguery, as the latter was a pièce de résistance in itself, rather than the appropriate stepping-stone to the dish of the evening, which was a caneton Joseph cooked with gooseberries and fine champagne, with a bottle of Chambertin genuine cuvée de 1872 from the Marquis de Severin’s special reserve. While the old gourmet discoursed thus eloquently on the art of the immortal Vatel, Dangerfield looked at the woman who had been his wife, to whom he had yielded the period of his fullest youth. He did not shift his glance, he stared at her steadily, wondering, not taking pains to mask his curiosity, though he was aware that she flinched under the estimate. How was it possible that this woman, whom he saw now in the nakedness of her cold calculating, could have given him a moment’s torture!