“Good evening, everybody,” he greeted Dan’s party.
“Hello! Mel! You here!”
Mellenger sighed. “One might glean the impression judging by your intonation, that I haven’t any right here,” he complained. “After leaving your office today I began to feel the downhill pull, so I jumped the two o’clock train and here I am. How do you do, Miss Maisie.”
He gave Maisie his hand and assisted her to alight. They exchanged glances and Mellenger felt his hand squeezed just a little. He answered the pressure, was introduced to Mrs. Casson as Dan handed her out on the steps, and immediately turned to greet Tamea.
“Good evening, Your Majesty.”
“Good evening, Monsieur Stoneface,” Tamea answered, and ignored his outstretched hand. He knew she was not pleased to find him here, and her next words, spoken in French, clinched this conclusion. “I will make your task an easy one,” she challenged. “I have been doing some thinking.” She smiled enigmatically. “Oh, I understand you very well, indeed!”
“Yes, I think we understand each other, Tamea. I want you to know, however,” he added as they followed Dan, Maisie and Mrs. Casson into the hotel, “that my attitude is perfectly impersonal. I do not dislike you.”
“If you understood me there would have been no necessity for that speech. Listen to my words, Stoneface. I——”
“Why do you call me Stoneface?” he interrupted.
“Because to many people your face reveals nothing. It is dull and blank when you would deceive people, but you are not a fool, Stoneface. But you remind me of the tremendous stone images on the coast of Easter Island, with their plain, sad, dull faces turned ever toward the sea as if seeking something that never comes. So you are Stoneface to me.”