The person in the educated evening clothes was made known as Mr. Revel.
For Lanyard's benefit and his own he vacated the chair beside Sophie
Weringrode, seating himself to one side of Cecelia Brooke, who had Velasco
between her and the soi-disant princess.
Already a waiter had placed and was filling glasses for Lanyard and the
girl.
With the best grace he could muster the adventurer sat down, accepted
a cigarette from the Weringrode case, and with openly impertinent eyes
inspected the intrigante critically.
She endured that ordeal well, smiling confidently, a handsome creature with
a beautiful body bewitchingly gowned.
Time, he considered, had been kind to Sophie--time, the mysteries of the
modern toilette, and the astonishing adaptability of womankind. Splendidly
vital, like all of her sort who survive, she seemed mysteriously able to
renew that vitality through the very extravagance with which she squandered
it. She had lived much of late years, rapidly but well, had learned much,
had profited by her lessons. To-night she looked legitimately the princess
of her pretensions; the manner of the grande dame suited her type; her
gesture was as impeccable as her taste; prettier than ever, she seemed at
worst little more than half her age.
And her quick intelligence mocked the privacy of his reflections.
"Fair, fast, and forty," she interpreted smilingly.
He pretended to be stunned. "Never!" he protested feebly.
The woman reaffirmed in a series of rapid nods. "Have I ever had secrets
from you? You are too quick for me, monsieur: I do not intend to begin
deceiving you at this late day--or trying to."
"Flattery," he declared, "is meat and drink to me. Tell me more."
She laughed lightly. "Thank you, no; vanity is unbecoming in men; I do not
care to make you vain."
Aware that Cecelia Brooke was listening all the while she seemed to be
enchanted with the patter of Mr. Revel and the less vapid observations of
Velasco, Lanyard sought to shunt personalities from himself.
"And now a princess!"
"Did you not know I had married? Yes, a princess of Spain--and with a
castle there, if you must know."
"Quite a change of atmosphere from Berlin," he remarked. "But it has done
you no perceptible harm."
That won him a black look. "Oh, Berlin!" she said with contemptuous lips.
"I haven't been there since the beginning of the war. I wish never to see
the place again. True: I was born an Austrian; but is that any reason why I
should love Germany?"
She leaned forward, her fan gently tapping the knuckles of his hand.
"Pay less attention to me," she insisted, with a nod toward the middle of
the room. "You are missing something. Me, I never tire of her."
The floor had been cleared. A drummer on the dais was sounding the
long-roll crescendo. At the culminating crash the lights were everywhere
darkened save for an orange-coloured spot-light set in the ceiling
immediately above the dancing floor. Into that circular field of torrid
glare bounded a woman wearing little more than an abbreviated kirtle of
grass strands with a few festoons of artificial flowers. Applause roared
out to her, the orchestra sounded the opening bars of an Americanised
Hawaiian melody, the woman with extraordinary vivacity began to perform a
denatured hula: a wild and tawny animal, superbly physical, relying with
warrant upon the stark sensuality of her body to make amends for the
censored phrases of the primitive dance. The floor resounded like a great
drum to the stamping of her bare feet, till one marvelled at such solidity
of flesh as could endure that punishment.
Sophie Weringrode lounged negligently upon the table, bringing her head
near Lanyard's shoulder.
"Play fair," she said between lips that barely moved.
Without looking round Lanyard answered in the same manner: "Why ask more
than you are prepared to give?"
"The police ran you out of America once. We need only publish the fact that
Mr. Anthony Ember is the Lone Wolf...."
"Well?"
"Leave Berlin out of it before this girl."