“All right! Dammit, it’s a better job than ever I got out of him,” returned his companion indignantly. “Some change from the catalogue suit you sported when you landed here! You know how to wear ’em; I’ve got to say that for you.... I’ve got to get back. When’ll you dine with me? I want to hear all about it.”
“Any Monday,” answered Banneker.
Cressey returned to his waiting potage, and was immediately bombarded with queries, mainly from the girl on his left.
“Who’s the wonderful-looking foreigner?”
“He isn’t a foreigner. At least not very much.”
“He looks like a North Italian princeling I used to know,” said one of the women. “One of that warm-complexioned out-of-door type, that preserves the Roman mould. Isn’t he an Italian?”
“He’s an American. I ran across him out in the desert country.”
“Hence that burned-in brown. What was he doing out there?”
Cressey hesitated. Innocent of any taint of snobbery himself, he yet did not know whether Banneker would care to have his humble position tacked onto the tails of that work of art, his new coat. “He was in the railroad business,” he returned cautiously. “His name is Banneker.”
“I’ve been seeing him for months,” remarked another of the company. “He’s always alone and always at that table. Nobody knows him. He’s a mystery.”