On the stairs came the sound of Jenks's returning feet, followed a moment later by the rumor of Miss Wardrop's own approach.
"Good evening," she greeted Smith.
"I've come to ask you a favor," he answered. "I once happened to save the life of a head waiter, and he has now repaid the obligation by reserving a table for me to-night at the Café Turin, and I want you and Miss Maitland to come and dine with me."
Miss Wardrop wavered; she looked at her niece inquiringly.
"Then you'll come," Smith said.
The old lady laughed.
"Apparently I will, if Miss Maitland has no other plan for the evening."
Helen signified that she had none; and thus it was that eight o'clock found them seated in an eligible corner of the big, gay restaurant, watching the animated holiday crowd, and themselves in no somber or taciturn mood.
A restaurant may be the resort of strange people, but it is an institution of peculiar attractiveness, for all that. All the other tables in the room were occupied by merry parties, jewels and demigems glinted back a thousand lights, men and women of society and out of it laughed and talked, there was the clink of a myriad of glasses, the hurrying of anxious and expectant waiters, the tinkle of silverware on china, mingled with the ignored strains of an orchestra invisible and sufficiently remote not to dictate offensively the tempo of mastication of the diners. It was nothing if not a cosmopolitan gathering. In the crowd were, to judge from appearances, foreigners of many races; but all were masquerading as citizens of the world.
"A conglomerate crew," Smith observed. "They like to convey the impression that last week they dined on the terrace at Bertolini's in Naples, or at Claridge's, or Shepheard's at Cairo, or the Madrid in the Bois, or the Poinciana; while as a matter of fact most of them are like myself and get into this sort of game about twice a year."