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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.
The next entry was: "On the Orient Express, or what was the O.E. before the 'Grosse General Stab' took over the whole job of mixing up these schedules.... Well, well, well, the veiled lady of the Métropole and Buckingham is in trouble in the next compartment ... at least so she says!... She just came into my compartment and said she had been insulted by the man who is sharing it with her.... Confound him!... BUT ... Now I've heard of such 'plants' before.... While I'd like to go in there and kick the brute through the partitions I believe discretion is the better part of valor.... Let her call the guard if the case needs attention.... The guard is a reservist and I believe she knows it.... Furthermore, I must be at Donaustrasse 24, Budapest, tomorrow, and meet Colonel Shuvalov at the Hotel de Paris, Belgrade, the day after.... I wonder if that petit Paris looks the same as when I met my old friend Count Arthur Zu Weringrode and Kazimir Galitzyn coquetting with Cecilia Coursan, Mlle.
His face darkened, a stinging reproof for the maitre d'hotel trembled on his tongue's tip; but that one was busily avoiding his eye on the far side of the table, drawing out a chair for "mademoiselle," while Velasco and the Weringrode were alert to read Lanyard's countenance and forestall any steps he might contemplate in defiance of their designs.
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.
At the same time the Weringrode was greeting Lanyard in the most intimate fashion and damning him in the understanding of Cecelia Brooke with every word. "My dear friend!" she cried gayly, extending a bedizened hand. "I had begun to despair of you. Is it part of your system with women always to be a little late, always to keep us wondering?"
But he did enormously resent what was, after all, something quite outside the calculations of these giddy conspirators, the fact that he must either beat incontinent retreat or introduce Cecelia Brooke to the company of Sophie Weringrode.
From the ground floor came semi-coherent snatches of surly comment, like growls of a thunderstorm passing off into the distance: "At a time such as this...." "... Secret Service snapping at our heels ..." "... base on the Vineyard discovered ..." "... Au Printemps raided, Sophie Weringrode under arrest. God knows whether she will hold her tongue!" "Trust her! But this ass ..."
One of the three was Velasco, another a young man unknown to him, a mannerly little creature who might have been written by the author of "What the Man Will Wear" in the theatre programmes. The third was Sophie Weringrode, the Wilhelmstrasse agent whom he had only that afternoon observed entering the house in Seventy-ninth Street. He stopped short, in a cold rage.
How charming!" She shifted in her chair to face Cecelia Brooke. "I wish to know her instantly!" Velasco was waiting only for that opening. "Dear princess," he said, instantly, "permit me to present Miss Cecelia Brooke ... Princess de Alavia...." Completely at ease and by every indication enjoying herself hugely, the girl bowed and took the hand the Weringrode thrust upon her.
Till that moment a mirror-sheathed pillar had hidden from him Velasco and the Weringrode; else Lanyard had refused to come so far; for obviously there were no unreserved tables, indeed few vacant chairs, in that part of the room.
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