"_You_," in a tone of very deep contempt. "You only carry chocolate boxes to flappers. . . . How can he come across you in the course of duty? . . . You're not a _soldier_!" Perowne said: "But what are we going to do? What will _he_ do?" "I," Sylvia answered, "shall tell the page-boy when he comes with his card to say that I'm engaged. . . . I don't know what _he'll_ do. Hit you, very likely. . . . He's looking at your back now. . . ." Perowne became rigid, sunk into his deep chair. "But he _couldn't_!" he exclaimed agitatedly. "You said that he was playing the part of Jesus Christ. Our Lord wouldn't hit people in an hotel lounge. . . ." "Our Lord!" Sylvia said contemptuously. "What do you know about our Lord? . . . Our Lord was a gentleman. . . . Christopher is playing at being our Lord calling on the woman taken in adultery. . . . He's giving me the social backing that his being my husband seems to him to call for." A one-armed, bearded _maître d'hôtel_ approached them through groups of arm-chairs arranged for _tête-à-tête_. He said: "Pardon . . . I did not see madame at first. . . ." And displayed a card on a salver. Without looking at it, Sylvia said: "_Dîtes à ce monsieur_ . . . that I am occupied." The _maître d'hôtel_ moved austerely away. "But he'll smash me to pieces . . ." Perowne exclaimed. "What am I to do? . . . What the deuce am I to do?" There would have been no way of exit for him except across Tietjens' face. With her spine very rigid and the expression of a snake that fixes a bird, Sylvia gazed straight in front of her and said nothing until she exclaimed: "For God's sake leave off trembling. . . . He would not do anything to a girl like you. . . . He's a man. . . ." The wickerwork of Perowne's chair had been crepitating as if it had been in a railway car. The sound ceased with a jerk. . . . Suddenly she clenched both her hands and let out a hateful little breath of air between her teeth. "By the immortal saints," she exclaimed, "I swear I'll make his wooden face wince yet." In the bluish looking-glass, a few minutes before, she had seen the agate-blue eyes of her husband, thirty feet away, over arm-chairs and between the fans of palms. He was standing, holding a riding-whip, looking rather clumsy in the uniform that did not suit him. Rather clumsy and worn out, but completely expressionless! He had looked straight into the reflection of her eyes and then looked away. He moved so that his profile was towards her, and continued gazing motionless at an elk's head that decorated the space of wall above glazed doors giving into the interior of the hotel. The hotel servant approaching him, he had produced a card and had given it to the servant, uttering three words. She saw his lips move in the three words: Mrs. Christopher Tietjens. She said, beneath her breath: