"Go downstairs, great man," Wandel was whispering, "get a cab, and wait in it at the door, so that you will be handy when I bring the infant Bacchus out."
"I'd rather not," George said, impatiently. "Someone else will do."
"By no means. Expediency, my dear friend, and the general welfare. Hercules for little Bacchus."
He couldn't refuse. Wandel and Goodhue, and, for that matter all of Dalrymple's friends, those girls in there, depended on him; yet he knew it was a bad business for him and for Dalrymple; and he wanted above all other things to pass for a moment through that brilliant screen that moved perpetually between him and Sylvia.
He waited in the shadows of the cab until Dalrymple and Wandel left the building. Wandel motioned the other into the cab. Dalrymple obeyed, willingly enough, swinging his stick, and humming off the key. Probably Wandel's diplomacy. Wandel jumped in, called an address to the driver, and slammed the door.
"Where are you taking him?" George asked.
For the first time Dalrymple seemed to realize who the silent man in the shadows was.
"I'm not going on any party with Morton," he said, sullenly.
"You can go to the devil," Wandel said, pleasantly, "as long as you keep away from decent people until you're decent yourself."
"No," George said. "He's going home or I have nothing more to do with it."