He handed over the beaded trifle, and she took it with a cold aloofness. There was a pause.
"Well, good night," said Hugo.
"Good night," said Pat.
"Good night," said John.
"Good night," said Pat.
She turned away, and the lift bore her aloft. Its machinery badly needed a drop of oil, and it emitted, as it went, a low wailing sound that seemed to John like a commentary on the whole situation.
VI
Some half a mile from Curzon Street, on the fringe of the Soho district, there stands a smaller and humbler hotel named the Belvidere. In a bedroom on the second floor of this, at about the moment when Pat and Hugo had entered the lobby of the Lincoln, Dolly Molloy sat before a mirror, cold-creaming her attractive face. She was interrupted in this task by the arrival of the senatorial Thomas G.
"Hello, sweetie-pie," said Miss Molloy. "There you are."