“Devil of a wreck,” said Cressey uneasily.  You never could tell what Esther might know or might not say.

“Ask him over here,” directed that young lady blandly, “for coffee and liqueurs.”

“Oh, I say!” protested one of the men.  “Nobody knows anything about him—­”

“He’s a friend of mine,” put in Cressey, in a tone which ended that particular objection.  “But I don’t think he’d come.”

Instantly there was a chorus of demand for him.

“All right, I’ll try,” yielded Cressey, rising.

“Put him next to me,” directed Miss Forbes.

The emissary visited Banneker’s table, was observed to be in brief colloquy with him, and returned, alone.

“Wouldn’t he come?” interrogated the chorus.

“He’s awfully sorry, but he says he isn’t fit for decent human associations.”

“More and more interesting!”—­“Why?”—­“What awful thing has he been doing?”

“Eating onions,” answered Cressey.  “Raw.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried the indignant Miss Forbes.  “One doesn’t eat raw onions at Sherry’s.  It’s a subterfuge.”

“Very likely.”

“If I went over there myself, who’ll bet a dozen silk stockings that I can’t—­”

“Come off it, Ess,” protested her brother-in-law across the table.  “That’s too high a jump, even for you.”

She let herself be dissuaded, but her dovelike eyes were vagrant during the rest of the dinner.

Pleasantly musing over the last glass of a good but moderate-priced Rosemont-Geneste, Banneker became aware of Cressey’s dinner party filing past him:  then of Jules, the waiter, discreetly murmuring something, from across the table.  A faint and provocative scent came to his nostrils, and as he followed Jules’s eyes he saw a feminine figure standing at his elbow.  He rose promptly and looked down into a face which might have been modeled for a type of appealing innocence.

“You’re Mr. Banneker, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Esther Forbes, and I think I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“It doesn’t seem probable,” he replied gravely.

“From a cousin of mine,” pursued the girl.  “She was Io Welland.  Haven’t I?”

A shock went through Banneker at the mention of the name.  But he steadied himself to say:  “I don’t think so.”

Herein he was speaking by the letter.  Knowing Io Welland as he had, he deemed it very improbable that she had even so much as mentioned him to any of her friends.  In that measure, at least, he believed, she would have respected the memory of the romance which she had so ruthlessly blasted.  This girl, with the daring and wistful eyes, was simply fishing, so he guessed.