Already it was one o'clock. Fortunately he was still in evening dress, and
needed only to change collar and tie to repair the disarray caused by his
encounter with Ekstrom.
In two minutes he was once more in the street.
Within five a cab deposited him in front of the Restaurant Au Printemps, an
institution of midnight New York whose title for distinction resided mainly
in the fact that it opened its upper floors for the diversion of "members"
about the time when others put up their shutters.
Lanyard's advent occurred at the height of its traffic. The dining rooms on
the street level were closed and unlighted: but men and women in pairs
and parties were streaming across the sidewalk from an endless chain of
motor-cars and being ground through the revolving doors like grist in the
hopper of an unhallowed mill, the men all in evening dress, the women in
garments whose insolence outrivalled the most Byzantine nights of L'Abbaye
Theleme.
Drawn in with the current through the turnstile door, Lanyard found himself
in an absurdly little lobby thronged to suffocation, largely with people
of the half-world--here and there a few celebrities, here and there small
tight clusters of respectabilities making a brave show of feeling at
ease--all waiting their turn to be lifted to delectable regions aloft in an
elevator barely big enough to serve in a private residence.
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