Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/79

 so many days and nights of anguished composition! Ogle's staring eye was fixed upon the continuing serenity of Mme. Momoro. She could not help hearing the loud voice uttering these horrible and unctuous innuendos, and upon such a woman nothing was lost. If she had not herself seen the play, and had nothing to judge it by except this description, and he should be presented to her as the author of "The Pastoral Scene" The thought was suffocating, and he was not comforted by the realization that his two colleagues in art were internally raging with him. As it was impossible to walk round a divan and choke a man to death in a steamer's smoking-room, Ogle rose to his feet.

"I think I'll go and dress for dinner," he said huskily.

Jones and Macklyn got up as he did. "Yes," the latter said. "This place has become sheerly unbearable."

The three went to the open door, where Ogle half-paused for a cross-shoulder murderous glance at the unconscious Tinker. The beautiful bridge player sat imperturbable in floating veils of cigar smoke from the divan, which was again turbulent in song. The execrable Tinker, standing, and with a fountain