"You are very foolish!" she murmured. "Please let my father in."

Mr. Parker returned in high good humor. He had met a host of acquaintances
and declared that he had not had a dull moment. As for the performance he
seemed to have forgotten there was one going on at all.

"I am for supper," he suggested. "I owe our friend here a supper in return
for his interrupted dinner."

"Supper, by all means!" I agreed.

"Remember that I am wearing a hat," Eve said. "We must go to one of the
smaller places."

In the end we went back to Stephano's. We sat at the table at which I had
so often watched Eve and her father sitting alone, and by her side I
listened to the music I had so often heard while I had watched her from
what had seemed to me to be an impossible distance.

Mr. Parker talked wonderfully. He spoke of gigantic financial deals in
Wall Street; of operations which had altered the policy of nations; of
great robberies in New York, the details of which he discussed with
amazing technical knowledge.

He played tricks with the knives and forks, balanced the glasses in
extraordinary fashion, and reduced our waiters to a state of numbed and
amazed incapacity. Every person who entered he seemed to have some slight
acquaintance with. All the time he was acknowledging and returning
greetings, and all the time he talked.