Grant looked up at them, only half-conscious of them.
"Can I have this?" he asked, indicating the magazine. "It's six months old. Thank you," and rushed out of the room.
They stared after him, and laughed a little, speculating as to what had taken his fancy.
"Found his affinity," someone suggested.
"Thought they were extinct, affinities," another countered.
"Found something to cure his corns."
"No, gone to consult his best friend."
And they laughed and forgot him.
Grant was in the telephone booth, and the impatient gentleman in the patent leather shoes was beginning to wonder if he was ever coming out of it. He was talking to Owen Hughes, the cinema star. That was why the patent leather gentleman didn't go upstairs to the numerous booths on the ground floor. He was hoping to hear some of the conversation. It was about whether someone had mentioned something in a letter to someone.
"You did! " Grant said. "Thanks! That's all I wanted to know. Keep it under your hat. That I asked, I mean."