They
began to talk.
Jules approached with the steak. Racksole tried to catch the
waiter's eye, but could not. The dinner proceeded.
'Oh, Father!' cried Nella, 'what a lot of mustard you have taken!'
'Have I?' he said, and then he happened to glance into a mirror on
his left hand between two windows. He saw the reflection of Jules,
who stood behind his chair, and he saw Jules give a slow,
significant, ominous wink to Mr Dimmock - Christian name,
Reginald.
He examined his mustard in silence. He thought that perhaps he
had helped himself rather plenteously to mustard.
Chapter Three AT THREE A.M.
MR REGINALD DIMMOCK proved himself, despite his extreme
youth, to be a man of the world and of experiences, and a practised
talker. Conversation between him and Nella Racksole seemed
never to flag. They chattered about St Petersburg, and the ice on
the Neva, and the tenor at the opera who had been exiled to
Siberia, and the quality of Russian tea, and the sweetness of
Russian champagne, and various other aspects of Muscovite
existence. Russia exhausted, Nella lightly outlined her own doings
since she had met the young man in the Tsar's capital, and this
recital brought the topic round to London, where it stayed till the
final piece of steak was eaten. Theodore Racksole noticed that Mr
Dimmock gave very meagre information about his own
movements, either past or future.
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