As he sat and smoked the remains of his cigar, while renewing his
apologies and explanations to his partner and soothing the ruffled
Nutty with well-chosen condolences, he wondered idly what Claire
was doing at that moment.
Claire at that moment, having been an astonished eye-witness of
the whole performance, was resuming her seat at a table at the
other end of the room.
7
There were two reasons why Lord Dawlish was unaware of Claire
Fenwick's presence at Reigelheimer's Restaurant: Reigelheimer's is
situated in a basement below a ten-storey building, and in order
to prevent this edifice from falling into his patrons' soup the
proprietor had been obliged to shore up his ceiling with massive
pillars. One of these protruded itself between the table which
Nutty had secured for his supper-party and the table at which
Claire was sitting with her friend, Lady Wetherby, and her steamer
acquaintance, Mr Dudley Pickering. That was why Bill had not seen
Claire from where he sat; and the reason that he had not seen her
when he left his seat and began to dance was that he was not one
of your dancers who glance airily about them. When Bill danced he
danced.
He would have been stunned with amazement if he had known that
Claire was at Reigelheimer's that night.
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