Page:The City of Masks (1918).djvu/270

258 He was perspiring freely. "My God, that's just the thing I'm trying to avoid. If they get me into court, they'll—"

"You do not understand. The diplomatic court,—corps, I mean. You are to go to London,—into the legation. The rarest opportunity—"

"Oh, Lord!" gasped Stuyvesant, passing his hand over his wet brow. A wave of relief surged over him. He leaned against the banister, weakly. "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

"You must be very nice to Mr. McFad-dán," she said, taking his arm. "And to Mrs. McFad-dán also. She is rather stunning—and quite young."

"That's nice," said Stuyvie, regaining a measure of his tolerant, blasé air.

Now, while the intelligence of the reader has long since grasped the fact that the expected is about to happen, it is only fair to state that the swiftly moving events of the next few minutes were totally unexpected by any one of the persons congregated in Mrs. Smith-Parvis's drawing-room.

Stuyvesant entered the room, a forced, unamiable smile on his lips. He nodded in the most casual, indifferent manner to those nearest the door. It was going to be a dull, deadly evening. The worst lot of he-fossils and scrawny-necked—

"For the love o' Mike!"

Up to that instant, one could have dropped a ten-pound weight on the floor without attracting the slightest attention. For a second or two following the shrill ejaculation, the crash of the axiomatic pin could have been heard from one end of the room to the other.