They strolled out into the lobby again, and at that identical instant Miriam herself came through the revolving doors. But Jack saw her first.
"Duck, you fellows! Duck!" he whispered swiftly. "Make out you don't know me!"
Messrs. Baldwin and Starr being experienced men of the world, knew how to act. They inconspicuously faded from Jack's side.
Miriam in sables and paradise plumes swam into the Bienvenu like a swan. Not a man in the place but drew a long breath of longing at the sight of her and looked enviously at the man slinking at her heels. Your haughty beauty always brings a man with her like a small dog on a leader.
Jack went up to them with glad smiles. "Hello! This is a surprise!"
It was manifestly a surprise to _them_. Bobo turned a delicate pea green shade, and had nothing to say. The girl smiled charmingly, but her eyes were like two points of ice.
Jack thought: "She thinks I've tracked them here. There's something up. I'll find out what it is."
"We just dropped in for tea," said Miriam languidly.
"Fine!" said Jack. "I'm starving! I'll join you."
She laughed like icicles tinkling. "Hadn't you better wait until----"
"Pshaw! What's an invite between friends!" said Jack. "Come on, I'll blow."
Miss Culbreth was a resourceful person, and eminently self-possessed, but for once Jack had the satisfaction of putting her out of countenance. She turned indignantly to Bobo, as if to call upon him to assert himself, but seeing that she could expect no help from that stricken figure, she hung her head uncertainly. Jack led the pair of them like lambs to the slaughter to the tea room.
Passing the elevators Bobo said huskily: "Thought you were going upstairs to dress."
Jack thought: "Wouldn't leave him alone with me for a farm!"
As a tea-party, the half hour that followed was not a howling success. Bobo crouched in his chair avoiding Jack's eye like a guilty spaniel. Miriam kept her eyes down too, but for a different reason; she didn't want Jack to see the hatred that burned there. The tapering white hand trembled a little in the business of pouring tea.
The onus of keeping things going was therefore upon Jack. Something humorous in the situation excited his risibilities. He experienced a pleasant malice in making out to the others that he saw nothing out of the way. He rattled on like a youth without a care in the world. Anything furnished him with a cue.