But before they could set out in this chariot of force and speed, something happened. It happened at the dinner-party given by Rowington, the active partner in the great publishing house, in honour of their twice-proved successful author.
The Rowingtons lived in a mansion at the southern end of Portland Place. It had belonged to his father and grandfather before him and the house was filled with inherited and acquired treasures. On entering, Triona had the same sense of luxurious comfort as on that far-off day of the first interview in Decies Street, when his advancing foot stepped so softly on the thick Turkey carpet. A manservant relieved him of his coat and hat, a maid took Olivia for an instant into a side-room whence she reappeared bare-necked, bare-armed, garbed, as her husband whispered, in cobweb swept from Heaven’s rafters. A manservant at the top of the stairs announced them. Mrs. Rowington, thin, angular, pince-nez’d, and Rowington, middle-aged, regarding the world benevolently through gold spectacles, received them and made the necessary introduction to those already present. There was a judge of the High Court, a well-known novelist, a beautiful and gracious woman whom Olivia, with a little catch of the heart, recognized as the Lady Aintree who had addressed a passing word of apology to her in the outgoing theatre crush in the first week of her emancipation. She envied Alexis who stood in talk with her. She herself was trying to correlate the young and modern bishop, in plum-coloured evening dress, with the billow of lawn semi-humanized by a gaunt staring head and a pair of waxen hands which had gone through the dimly comprehended ritual of her confirmation.
He explained his presence in this brilliant assembly on the ground that once he had written an obscure book of travels in Asia Minor. St. Paul’s steps retraced. He had fought with beasts at Ephesus—but not of the kind to which the apostle was presumed to refer; disgusting little beasts! He also swore “By Jove!” which she was sure her confirming bishop would never have done.
A while later, as the room was filling up, she found herself talking to a Colonel Onslow, an authority on Kurdistan, said her hostess, who was anxious to meet her husband. She glanced around, her instinctive habit, to place Alexis. He had been torn from Lady Aintree and was standing just behind her by the chimney-piece in conversation with a couple of men. His eyes caught the message of love in hers and telegraphed back again.
He no longer confounded Rowington. The central figure of this distinguished gathering, he glowed with the divine fire of success. He was talking to two elderly men on Russian folk literature. On that he was an authority. He knew the inner poignancy of every song, the bitter humour of every tale. Speaking sober truth about Russia he forgot that he had ever lied.
Suddenly into the little open space about the hearth emerged from the throng, a brisk, wiry man with a keen, clean-shaven, weather-beaten face, who, on catching sight of Triona, paused for a startled second and then darted up to him with outstretched hand; and Triona, taken off his guard, made an eager step to meet him.
If, for two days, you have faced death alone with a man who has given every proof of indomitable courage and cheerfulness, your heart has an abominable way of leaping when suddenly, years afterwards, you are brought with him face to face.
“You are Briggs! I knew I was right. Fancy running up against you here!”
Triona’s cheeks burned hot. The buried name seemed to be shrieked to the listening universe. At any rate, Olivia heard; and instinctively she drifted from the side of Colonel Onslow towards Alexis.
“It’s a far cry from Russia,” he said.