"That's just in case," he said roguishly.
He left rearward, into the hotel. Durand, was standing near the outside of the café, toward the street. Several minutes later, turning his head disinterestedly, he was just in time to catch the colonel's passage across the thick, soapy greenish plate glass that fronted the place and bulged convexly somewhat like a bay window.
The thickness of the medium they passed through blurred his outlines somewhat, but Durand could tell it was he. On the far side of him three detached excrescences, over and above those pertaining to his own person, were all that revealed he was escorting a woman. At the height of his shoulder blades the tip of a glycerined feather projected, from a hidden woman's bonnet on the outside, as though a quill or bright-tipped dart were sticking into him.
Then at the small of his back, and extending far beyond his own modest contours, a bustle fluctuated both voluptuously and yet somehow genteelly, ballooning along as its hidden wearer walked at his side. And lastly, down at his heels, as though one of the colonel's socks had loosened and were dragging, a small triangular wedge of skirt hem, an evening train, fluttered along the ground, switching erratically from side to side as it went.
But Durand didn't even allow his tepid glance to linger, to follow them long enough until they had drawn away into perspective sufficient to separate into two persons, instead of the one composite one, superimposed, they now formed.
Again he gave that wearied smile as on the night before. This time his brows went up, much as to say: Each man to his taste..
34
The page was later tonight in putting in an appearance. The colonel, therefore, had had one drink more than on their former evenings. This showed itself only in the added warmth of his friendliness, and in a tendency to clap and grip Durand on the upper arm at frequent intervals, in punctuation of almost every second remark he made. Otherwise Worth's speech was clear enough and his train of thought coherent enough.
"My fiancée is a lovely girl, Randall, a lovely girl," he reiterated solemnly, as though unable to impress it sufficiently upon his hearer.
"I'm sure she is," Durand said, as he had twice already. "I'm sure." Having corrected the mistake in nomenclature once for the evening, he no longer took the trouble after that, let Worth have his way about it.
"I tell you, I'm the luckiest man. But you should see her. You don't have to believe me; you should just see her for yourself."
"Oh, I do believe you," Durand protested demurely.
"You should have a girl like that" (clap). "You should get yourself a girl like that" (clap, clap).
"We can't all be as lucky," Durand murmured, stropping the edge of one foot restlessly along the brass bar rail.
"Hate to see a fine figure of a man like you mooning around alone" (dap).
"I'm not complaining," Durand said, scouring the bottom of his glass disclaimingly around on the bar-top in interlocked circles, until he had brought it back again around to where it had started from.
"But, dammit, look at me. I have you bettered by ten years, I vow. I don't stand around waiting for them to come to me. You'll never get anyone that way. You have to go out and find one."
"That's right, you do," agreed Durand, with the air of a man pledging to himself: I'll keep up my end of this conversation if it kills me.
The colonel was suddenly assailed by belated misgivings of having transgressed good taste. This time he pinioned Durand fondly by the coat revere, in lieu of a clap. "I'm not being too personal, am I?" he besought. "If I am, just say so, and I'll back out. Wouldn't want you to think that for the world."
"No offense whatever," Durand assured him. Which was literally true. It was like discussing astrology or some other remote subject.
"Reason I take such an interest in you is, I like you. I find your company most enjoyable."
"I can reciprocate the feeling," said Durand gravely, with a brief inclination that seemed to be exerted by the top of his head alone.
"I'd like to have you meet my fiancée. There's a girl."
"I'd be honored," said Durand. He was beginning to wish the nightly page boy would put in an appearance.
"She'll be coming down in a minute or two for me to pick her up." The colonel was suddenly visited with an inspiration. Pride of possession very frequently being synonymous with pride of display. "Why don't you join us for tonight? Love to have you. Come on out with me and I'll introduce you."
"Not tonight," said Durand a little hastily. Grasping at any excuse he could find, he stroked his own jaw line tentatively. "I wasn't expecting-- Afraid I'm not presentable."
The colonel cocked his head critically. "Nonsense. You look all right. You're clean shaven."
He bethought himself of a compromise. "Well, just step out the door with me a moment and let me have you meet her, as she comes down. Then we'll go on alone."
Durand was suddenly visited by scruples of delicacy, which came in handy to his purpose. "I don't think she'd thank you for bringing anyone straight out of here to be presented to her face to face. It mightn't look right; you know how the ladies are. After all, this is a men's drinking café."
"But I come in here every night myself," the colonel said uncertainly.
"But you know her; I'm a stranger to her. It's not the same thing."
Before Worth could make up his mind on this fine point of social etiquette, the habitual bellboy had come in and delivered his summons.
"Your lady's down, sir."
The colonel put a coin in his gloved hand, drained his drink.
"Tell you what. I have a better idea. Suppose we make it a foursome. I'll have my fiancée bring someone along for you. She must know some of the unattached young ladies around here by now. That'll make it more comfortable for you. How about tomorrow night? Nothing on for then, have you ?"
"Not a thing," said Durand, satisfied with having gained his reprieve for the present at least, and toying with the thought of sending his excuses sometime during the course of the following day as the best way of getting out of it. Any further reluctance at the moment, he realized, would have veered over into offense, even where such a thick-skinned individual as Worth was concerned, and it was none of his intent to offend the man gratuitously.
"Fine!" said Worth, beaming. "That's an engagement, then. I'll tell you what's just the place for it. There's a little supper establishment called The Grotto. Open late. Not fast, you understand. Just good and lively. They have music there, and very good wine. We go there often, Miss Castle and I. Instead of meeting here at the hotel, where there are a lot of old fogies around ready to gossip, you join us there. I'll bring the two young ladies with me."
"Excellent," said Durand.
The colonel rubbed his hands together gleefully, evidently former facets of his life not having yet died out as completely as he himself might have wished to believe.
"I'll engage a private alcove. They have them there, curtained off from prying eyes. Look for us, you'll find us in one of them." He tapped Durand on the chest with his index finger. "And don't forget, the invitation's mine."
"I dispute you there," Durand said.
"We'll quarrel over that when the time comes. Tomorrow night, then. Understood ?"
"Tomorrow night. Understood."
Worth went hurrying toward the page who stood waiting for him just within the doors, evidently having received literal instructions to bring him with him, on the part of one who knew the colonel well.
Suddenly he turned, came hastening back, rose on tiptoe, and whispered hoarsely into Durand's ear: "I forgot to ask you. Blonde or brunette ?"
Her image crossed Durand's mind for a minute. "Brunette," he said succinctly, and a flicker of pain crinkled his eyes momentarily.