“My dear Adam, I, too, wanted to see you, and intended to call to-morrow. You are not intruding in the least. Here’s a seat. Allow me to introduce Miss Rolfe—Mr Jean Adam.”
The man of double personality bowed again, and passing Marion and her lover, seated himself at her side, commencing to chat merrily, and explaining that he had recognised Max from the circle above. He had, it appeared, been to Dover Street an hour before, and Max’s man had told him where his master was spending the evening.
Marion rather liked him. Max had already told her of this Frenchman who spoke English so well, and with whom he was doing business. In his speech he had the air and polish of the true cosmopolitan, and he also possessed a keen sense of humour.
Presently Marion, glancing again at her watch, declared that she must leave. Max scarcely ever took her home. He always put her into a cab, and she descended at the corner of the street off Oxford Street, where Cunnington’s assistants had their big barrack-like dwelling, and walked home alone. It was her wish to do so, and he respected it.
Therefore all three rose, and Max went outside with her and put her into a cab, promising to meet her on the following evening. In the bustle of Leicester Square at that hour, he could not kiss her; but as their hands grasped, their eyes met in a glance which both knew was one of trust and mutual affection.
And so they parted, Max returning to the lounge where the Frenchman, Jean Adam, alias the Englishman John Adams, awaited him.
They had a drink at the American bar, and then promenaded up and down in the gay crowd that nightly assembles in that popular resort. Max nodded to one or two men he knew—clubmen and habitués like himself, and then, after the show was over, they took a cab down to the Savoy to supper.
The gay restaurant, with its crimson carpet and white decorations was crowded. To Gustave, who allotted the tables, Max was well-known, therefore a table for two in the left-hand corner of the big room—the table he usually occupied—was instantly secured, and the couple who had engaged were moved elsewhere. In the season Max had supper there on an average three nights a week, for at the Savoy one meets all one’s friends, and there is always music, life, and brightness after the theatre, until the licensing regulations cut off the merriment so abruptly.
That night was no exception. The place was filled to overflowing with the smart world, together with many American visitors, the latest musical-comedy actresses and their male appendages, country cousins, men whose names were household words, and women whose pasts had appeared in black and white in the newspapers. A strange crowd, surely. Half the people were known to each other by sight, if not personally, and the other half were mere onlookers, filled with curiosity when Lord This or Dolly That were pointed out to them.
Max and Jean Adam were seated with a bottle of Krug between them when the former exclaimed—