If
the family was really at last going to pieces why shouldn't she recognise
the necessity of pitching Morgan into some sort of lifeboat? This
presumption was fostered by the fact that they were established in
luxurious quarters in the capital of pleasure; that was exactly where
they naturally _would_ be established in view of going to pieces.
Moreover didn't she mention that Mr. Moreen and the others were enjoying
themselves at the opera with Mr. Granger, and wasn't _that_ also
precisely where one would look for them on the eve of a smash? Pemberton
gathered that Mr. Granger was a rich vacant American--a big bill with a
flourishy heading and no items; so that one of Paula's "ideas" was
probably that this time she hadn't missed fire--by which straight shot
indeed she would have shattered the general cohesion. And if the
cohesion was to crumble what would become of poor Pemberton? He felt
quite enough bound up with them to figure to his alarm as a dislodged
block in the edifice.
It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had been ordered for him;
sitting with him below, later, at the dim delayed meal, in the presence
of a great deal of corded green plush, a plate of ornamental biscuit and
an aloofness marked on the part of the waiter.
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