"
In the stunned pause that followed this astounding remark, Anthony
choked suddenly on an oyster and hurried his napkin to his face. Rachael
and Muriel raised a mild if somewhat surprised laugh, in which Dick and
Maury joined, both of them red in the face and restraining
uproariousness with the most apparent difficulty.
"--My God!" thought Anthony. "It's a subtitle from one of his movies.
The man's memorized it!"
Gloria alone made no sound. She fixed Mr. Bloeckman with a glance of
silent reproach.
"Well, for the love of Heaven! Where on earth did you dig that up?"
Bloeckman looked at her uncertainly, not sure of her intention. But in a
moment he recovered his poise and assumed the bland and consciously
tolerant smile of an intellectual among spoiled and callow youth.
The soup came up from the kitchen--but simultaneously the orchestra
leader came up from the bar, where he had absorbed the tone color
inherent in a seidel of beer. So the soup was left to cool during the
delivery of a ballad entitled "Everything's at Home Except Your Wife."
Then the champagne--and the party assumed more amusing proportions. The
men, except Richard Caramel, drank freely; Gloria and Muriel sipped a
glass apiece; Rachael Jerryl took none.
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