'Your gown!' Cairns said 'Your gown's like a stalk, Vic, and you're a big white flower bursting from it . . . a big white flower, pink flecked, scented. . . .'
'Sh . . . Tom, don't talk like that in here.' Victoria slid her foot forward, slipped off her shoe and gently put her foot on the Major's instep. His eyes blinked quickly twice. He reached out for his glass and gulped down the champagne.
The waiter returned, velvet footed. Every one of his gestures consecrated the quails resting on the flowered white plates, surrounded by a succulent lake of aromatic sauce.
They ate silently. There was already between them the good understanding which makes speech unnecessary. Victoria looked about her from time to time. The couples interested her, for they were nearly all couples. Most of them comprised a man between thirty and forty, and a woman some years his junior. Their behaviour was severely decorous, in fact a little languid. From a table near by a woman's voice floated lazily,
'I rather like this pub, Robbie.'
Indeed the acceptance of the pubbishness of the place was characteristic of its frequenters. Most of the men looked vaguely weary; some keenly interested bent over the silver laden tables, their eyes fixed on their women's arms. Here and there a foreigner with coal black hair, a soft shirt front and a fancy white waistcoat, spiced with originality the sedateness of English gaiety. An American woman was giving herself away by a semitone, but her gown was exquisite and its décolletage challenged gravitation.
Cairns' attitude was exasperatingly that of Gallio, save as concerned Victoria. His eyes did not leave her. She knew perfectly well that he was inspecting her, watching the rise and fall on her white breast of his Christmas gift, a diamond cross. They both refused the mousse and Victoria mischievously leant forward, her hands crossed under her chin, her arms so near Cairns' face that he could see on them the fine black shading of the down.
'Well, Tom?' she asked. 'Quite happy?'
'No,' growled Cairns, 'you know what I want.'
'Patience and shuffle the cards,' said Victoria, 'and be thankful I'm here at all. But I musn't rot you Tommy dear, after a present like that.'