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Page 81
"To do Bayard out of that honour!" he said cheerfully. "You couldn't
invent a service to gratify me more hugely."
She smiled in sympathy.
"But he will be expecting to see you home?"
"No matter if he does, he shan't. Besides, he lives in bachelor
rooms--within walking distance, I believe."
Holding aside the window draperies, he followed her through to the
ball-room.
Already the vast and shining hall was almost empty; only at the
farther wall a handful of guests clustered round the doorway, waiting
to take their turn in the crowded cloakrooms. Off to one side, in a
deep apsidal recess, the members of the orchestra were busily packing
up their instruments. And as the last of the guests--save Marian
Blessington and P. Sybarite--edged out into the ante-rooms, a
detachment of servants invaded the dancing-floor and bustled about
setting the room to rights.
A moment more, and the two were close upon the vanguard of departing
guests.
"You'll have a time finding your hat and coat," smiled the girl.
"I? Not I. With marvellous sagacity, I left 'em with a waiter
downstairs. But you?"
"I'm afraid I must keep you waiting. No matter if it is four in the
morning--and later--women do take a time to wrap up. You won't mind?"
"Not in the least--it prolongs my Day of Days!" he laughed.
"I shall look for you in the lobby," she replied, smiling; and slipped
away through the throng.
Picking his way to the elevators, constantly squirming more
inextricably into the heart of the press, elbowed and shouldered and
politely walked upon, not only fore and aft, but to port and starboard
as well, by dame, dowager, and d�butante, husband, lover, and esquire,
patricians, celebrities and the commonalty (a trace, as the chemists
say), P. Sybarite at length found himself only a layer or two removed
from the elevator gates.
And one of these presently opening, he stumbled in with the crush, to
hold his breath in vain effort to make himself smaller, gaze in
cross-eyed embarrassment at the abundant and nobly undisguised back of
the lady of distinction in front of him, and stand on tiptoes to spare
those of the man behind him; while the cage descended with maddening
deliberation.
If he had but guessed the identity of the man in the rear, the chances
are he would have (thoughtlessly of course) brought down his heels
upon the other's toes with all his weight on top of them. But in his
ignorance P. Sybarite was diligent to keep the peace.
Liberated on the lower floor, he found his lackey, resumed hat and
coat, and mounted guard in the lobby opposite the elevators.
Miss Blessington procrastinating consistently with her warning, he
schooled himself to patience, mildly diverted by inspection of those
who passed him, going out.
At the side-street entrance, the crush of ante-room and elevators was
duplicated, people jamming the doorway and overflowing to the sidewalk
while awaiting their motor-cars and carriages.
But through the Fifth Avenue entrance only the thin stream of those
intending to walk was trickling away.
After a time P. Sybarite discovered Mr. Bayard Shaynon not far off,
like himself waiting and with a vigilant eye reviewing the departing,
the while he talked in close confidence with one who, a stranger to P.
Sybarite, was briefly catalogued in his gallery of impressions as
"hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained but awkward--very
likely, _nouveau riche_;" and with this summary, dismissed from the
little man's thoughts.
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