I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, “and no birds sang.” I crossed the road.
The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. “Would to heaven it were a gaol,” I muttered to myself, “and this were the number of Hamdi Effendi!”
A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and vaguely remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and hoped that he was well.
“Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I’m full up with work. But you don’t hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car.”
His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind. Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral decorator?
“Since we met, guess how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic. Four times!”
Long-suffering Atlantic!
“And about yourself. Still going piano, piano with books and things?”
“Yes, books and things,” I echud.
The page came up and announced Hamdi’s intention of immediate appearance.