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.
When idly he glanced that way a second time, the younger Shaynon was
alone, and had moved nearer; his countenance impassive, he looked
through and beyond P. Sybarite a thought too ostentatiously. But when
eventually Marian appeared, he was instant to her side, forestalling
even the alert flanking movement of P.
Pages:
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197