“My dear lady,” he said, “it is for Circe to command—and for me to obey.”
“And you’ll come and have tea with me afterwards at the Waldorf?”
“That,” Mr. Sabin declared, “will add still further to my happiness.”
“Will you call for me, then—and where shall we have lunch, and at what time? I must go and develop a headache at once, or that tiresome Dalkeith boy will be pounding at my door.”
“I will call for you at the Waldorf at half-past one,” Mr. Sabin said. “Unless you have any choice, I will take you to a little place downtown where we can imagine ourselves back on the Continent, and where we shall be spared the horror of green corn.”
“Delightful,” she murmured, buttoning her glove. “Then you shall take me for a drive to Fifth Avenue, or to see somebody’s tomb, and my woman shall make some real Russian tea for us in my sitting-room. Really, I think I’m doing very well for the first day. Is the spell beginning to work?”
“Hideously,” he assured her. “I feel already that the only thing I dread in life are these two hours before luncheon.”
She nodded.
“That is quite as it should be. Don’t trouble to come down with me. I believe that Dalkeith pere is hanging round somewhere, and in view of my headache perhaps you had better remain in the background for the moment. At one-thirty, then!”
Mr. Sabin smiled as she passed out of the room, and lit a cigarette.
“I think,” he said to himself, “that the arrival of Felix is opportune.”
CHAPTER VII
They sat together at a small table, looking upon a scene which was probably unique in the history of the great restaurant. The younger man was both frankly interested and undoubtedly curious. Mr. Sabin, though his eyes seemed everywhere, retained to the full extent that nonchalance of manner which all his life he had so assiduously cultivated.
“It is wonderful, my dear Felix,” he said,
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