Part 7 (2/2)

”I know, the same will happen here no doubt, though lower Bohemia will never penetrate because the prices are going to be kept up; and this place will always equal one of the first-cla.s.s restaurants in town.

Well, how goes it?”

I knew what he meant and as we walked I told him, as in duty bound, all there was to tell of the progress of my suit.

”Met her once,” I said, ”had about two minutes' talk. There's just a chance, I am not certain, that I may meet her to-night, and not in a crowd--in which case you may be sure I shall make the very most of my opportunities. If this doesn't come off, I don't see any other chance of really getting to know her until September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, and I have to thank you for that invitation, Arthur.”

He sighed.

”It's a difficult house to get into,” he said, ”unless you are one of the pukka shooting set, but I told old Sir Walter that, though you weren't much good in October and that pheasants weren't in your line, you were A1 at driven 'birds.'”

”But I can't hit a driven partridge to save my life, unless by a fluke!”

”I know, Tom, I don't say that you'll be liked at all, but you won the toss and by our bond we're bound to do all we can to give you your opportunity. I need hardly say that my greatest hope in life is that she'll have nothing whatever to say to you. And now let's change that subject--it's confounded thin ice however you look at it--and enjoy our little selves. I have been on the 'phone with Anatole, and we are going to _dine_ to-night, my son, really _dine_!”

The Golden Snail in a Soho side street presented no great front to the world. There was a sign over a door, a dingy pa.s.sage to be traversed, until one came to another door, opened it and found oneself in a long, lofty room shaped like a capital L. The long arm was the one at which you entered, the other went round a rectangle. The place was very simply decorated in black and white. Tables ran along each side, and the only difference between it and a dozen other such places in the foreign quarter of London was that the seats against the wall were not of red plush but of dark green morocco leather. It was fairly full, of a mixed company, but long-haired and impecunious Bohemia was conspicuously absent.

A table had been reserved for us at the other end opposite the door, so that sitting there we could see in both directions.

We started with little tiny oysters from Belon in Brittany--I don't suppose there was another restaurant in London at that moment that was serving them. The soup was asparagus cream soup of superlative excellence, and then came a young guinea-fowl stuffed with mushrooms, which was perfection itself.

”How on earth do you find these places, Arthur?” I asked.

”Well,” he answered, ”ever since I left Oxford I've been going about London and Paris gathering information of all sorts. I've lived among the queerest set of people in Europe. My father thinks I'm a waster, but he doesn't know. My mother, angel that she is, understands me perfectly.

She knows that I've only postponed going into politics until I have had more experience than the ordinary young man in my position gets. I absolutely refused to be shoved into the House directly I had come down with my degree, the Union, and all those sort of blus.h.i.+ng honors thick upon me. In a year or two you will see, Tom, and meanwhile here's the Moulin a Vent.”

Anatole poured out that delightful but little known burgundy for us himself, and it was a wine for the G.o.ds.

”A little interval,” said Arthur, ”in which a cigarette is clearly indicated, and then we are to have some slices of bear ham, stewed in champagne, which I _rather_ think will please you.”

We sat and smoked, looking up the long room, when the swing doors at the end opened and a man and a girl entered. They came down towards us, obviously approaching a table reserved for them in the short arm of the restaurant, and I noticed the man at once.

For one thing he was in full evening dress, whereas the only other diners who were in evening kit at all wore dinner jackets and black ties. He was a tall man of about fifty with wavy, gray hair. His face was clean shaved, and a little full. I thought I had never seen a handsomer man, or one who moved with a grace and ease which were so perfectly unconscious. The girl beside him was a pretty enough young creature with a powdered face and reddened lips--nothing about her in the least out of the ordinary. When he came opposite our table, his face lighted up suddenly. He smiled at Arthur, and opened his mouth as if to speak.

Arthur looked him straight in the face with a calm and stony stare--I never saw a more cruel or explicit cut.

The man smiled again without the least bravado or embarra.s.sment, gave an almost imperceptible bow and pa.s.sed on towards his table without any one but ourselves having noticed what occurred. The whole affair was a question of some five or six seconds.

He sat down with his back to us.

”Who is he?” I asked of Arthur.

He hesitated for a moment and then he gave a little shudder of disgust.

I thought, also, that I saw a shade come upon his face.

”No one you are ever likely to meet in life, Tom,” he replied, ”unless you go to see him tried for murder at the Old Bailey some day. He is a fellow called Mark Antony Midwinter.”

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