“Now I must go.”
“Must you really? Then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi.”
“If it’s fine, I will walk. It seems more suitable to walk home after dining here.”
“Walk! Then let us all walk together, and we’ll persuade you into the Cafe Royal.”
“Dick Garstin will be there,” said Ambrose Jennings in a frail voice, “Enid Blunt, a Turkish refugee from Smyrna who writes quite decent verse, Thapoulos, Penitence Murray, who is just out of prison, and Smith the sculptor, with his mistress, a round-faced little Russian girl. She’s the dearest little Bolshevik I know.”
He looked plaintively yet critically at Lady Sellingworth, and pulled his little black beard with fingers covered with antique rings.
“Dear little bloodthirsty thing!” he added to Lady Sellingworth. “You would like her. I know it.”
“I’m sure I should. There is something so alluring about Bolshevism when it’s safely tucked up at the Cafe Royal. But I will only walk to the door.”
“And then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi,” said Miss Van Tuyn. “Shall we go?”
They fared forth into the London night—Craven last.