Soane, in his own room, lay sleeping off the consequences of an evening at Grogan’s. One glance was sufficient for Barres, and he walked out.
On Madison Avenue he found a florist, selected a bewildering bouquet, and despatched it with a hasty note, by messenger, to Dulcie at her school. In the note he wrote:
“I shall be there. Cheer up!”
He also sent more flowers to his studio, with pencilled orders to Aristocrates.
In a toy-shop he found an appropriate decoration for the centre of the lunch table.
Later, in a jeweller’s, he discovered a plain gold locket, shaped like a heart and inset with one little diamond. A slender chain by which to suspend it was easily chosen; and an extra payment admitted him to the emergency department where he looked on while an expert engraved upon the locket: “Dulcie Soane from Garret Barres,” and the date.
After that he went into the nearest telephone booth and called up several people, inviting them to dine with him that evening.
It was nearly ten o’clock now. He took his little gift, stopped a taxi, and arrived at the big brick high-school just in time to enter with the last straggling parents and family friends.
The hall was big and austerely bare, except for the ribbons and flags and palms which decorated it. It was hot, too, though all the great blank windows had been swung open wide.
The usual exercises had already begun; there were speeches from Authority; prayers by Divinity; choral effects by graduating pulchritude.