And it’s just such people as you who let them do it!”
Aileen was flattered. “Is it so bad?” she asked.
“I haven’t even thought about it.
After all, where else can we go here?”
He poked his finger at the tasseled silk shade of a floor lamp.
“This has a wine stain on it.
And somebody’s been burning this fake tapestry with cigarettes.
I don’t blame them!”
Aileen laughed at him, amused by his swaggering maleness.
“Oh, come on,” she said, “we could be in worse places than this.
Besides, you’re keeping your guests waiting.”
“That’s right.
I wonder if that sheik knows anything about American whiskey.
Let’s go find out!”
Maxim’s of 1900.
Glossily waxed black floors, reflecting Pompeian red walls, a gilded ceiling, and the lights of three enormous prismed electroliers.
Except for front and rear exits, the walls lined with russet-red leather seats, and before them small and intimate supper tables: a Gallic atmosphere calculated to effect that mental as well as emotional release which the world of that day sought in one place, and one place only—Paris!
Merely to enter was to lapse into a happy delirium. Types and costumes and varying temperaments of all the nations of the world. And all at the topmost toss of wealth, title, position, fame, and all tethered by the steel cords of convention in conduct and dress, yet all seeking freedom from convention, drawn to convention’s showplace of unconventionally.
Aileen was gloriously thrilled to see and be seen here.
As Tollifer rather anticipated, his friends were late.
“The sheik,” he explained, “sometimes goes astray.”
But a few minutes later came Mrs. Brainerd and her Greek, and Mrs. Thorne with her Arab cavalier.
The sheik in particular caused a slight stir and buzz. At once, in his grandest manner, Tollifer took over the business of ordering, delighting in the half-dozen waiters who hovered like flies about the table.
The sheik, he was delighted to discover, was instantly attracted to Aileen.
Her rounded form, her bright hair and high coloring suggested more delight to him than the slim and less flamboyant charms of either Mrs. Brainerd or Mrs. Thorne.
At once he devoted himself to her, bombarding her with polite inquiries.
From where did she come?
Was her husband, like all these Americans, a millionaire?
Might he have one of her roses?
He liked their dark color.
Had she ever been to Arabia?
She would enjoy the life of a roving Bedouin tribe.
It was very beautiful in Arabia.
Aileen, fixed by his blazing black eyes above his smartly clipped beard, his long hooked nose and swarthy complexion, was at once thrilled and dubious.
What would intimate contact with this man be like? Suppose one went to Arabia—what would become of one in the clutches of such a creature?
Although she smiled and gave all the required information, she was pleased to feel that Tollifer and his friends were near at hand, even though their amused attention was not exactly to her liking.
Ibrihim, learning that she was to be in Paris for a few days, asked to be allowed to see more of her. He had entered a horse for the Grand Prix.
She must go with him to see the horse.
Later, they would dine together.
She was at the Ritz?
Ah . . . he was occupying an apartment in the Rue Said, near the Bois.
During this scene, Tollifer, in high spirits, was doing his best to ingratiate himself with Marigold, who twitted him as to this latest affair of his, the nature of which she quite well understood.
“Tell me, Bruce,” she teased, at one point, “what are you going to do with all the rest of us, now that you are so amply provided for?”
“If you mean yourself, you can tell me that.
I haven’t so many bothering me.”
“No?
Is the poor darling as lonely as that?”
“Just as lonely as that, and more so, if you only knew,” he said soberly.
“But what about your husband?
Isn’t he likely to resent interference?”