TWO LONG TABLES in the banquet room were lined with cards, one for each party in attendance, with numbers on the cards indicating the order of entry for each group of twenty. The procedure was explained by a man whose golden Trylon and Perisphere lapel pin conferred on him an instant legitimacy—as if they were visitors to a strange land, and he the ambassador. He was quick to say that the numbers had been assigned entirely at random, using a computing machine created expressly for the purpose of random-number generation. The Binghams found themselves in group 17.
The man with the lapel pin invited the first group to assemble at the door. Each party would be led down a broad corridor by a woman in a straw hat topped by a replica of the Trylon and Perisphere. In a chamber arrayed in antiques—not just Louis XIV, but Louis XVI, too—they would be presented to Their Royal Highnesses, each of whom would offer a beneficent nod as the Americans’ names found purchase in the royal ears. Many in the hall wondered if anything more than an answering nod would be appropriate. “Charmed to make your acquaintance” seemed awfully familiar, and wasn’t there a rule against Americans bowing to foreign kings? Wasn’t that why everyone was so suspicious of the Catholics, with their Italian popes and their bowing and ring-kissing? Perhaps the king himself would offer some arcane salute used since the days of Richard the Lionheart to acknowledge the fealty of loyal vassals? That would be a sight to see.
As soon as the groups began to form, a film of sweat rose on Francis’s forehead. These were the final moments. The doors would open and the procession would begin. The groups were led into a long corridor and lined up, groups 1 through 20, but no one was allowed past the final door and into the royal chamber. There was a great buzz and chatter; the royals were ten minutes late, then twenty, then thirty. The well-wishers had queued along the corridor like the world’s most lavish breadline when, with a gasp from groups 1 through 5, the double doors parted and the ones on whom the computing machine had smiled disappeared from view. Francis steeled himself. If he had tried for charm and wit in the banquet room, he now wanted silence and an end to small talk. The line was moving, group 2 was through the doors, and he knew that he would not have much time to act.
A ripple of shocked whispers raced to the back of the line: The Italian ambassador—who invited him?—had saluted the king with the raised fist of the Fascists. Definitely a breach of etiquette. The line moved again, and Francis figured that he had ten minutes, perhaps fifteen, before he reached into the sporran for the gun. A tremor twisted his guts. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, picturing how he would slide the gun from its pouch, raise it, and fire. Just like Cronin had shown him.
“Sir Angus, could I have a moment of your time?” Mrs. Bingham was at close quarters, speaking in a near whisper. Anisette had drifted from his side, feigning interest in a pair of wimple-and-ruff portraits in order to open a channel for her mother. Félicité stood stern and alone by the edge of the group.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “You caught me daydreaming.”
“I do apologize, but I wanted to take une petite minute to address a delicate issue, but one it is my duty, as a mother, to perform.”
In imagining the sequence of events in the royal chamber, Francis had not yet reached the part about what he would do after the king had fallen: Would he wait for the guards to return fire? Or immediately place the gun to his own head?
“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Mrs. Bingham went on, “Anisette is quite fond of you. But before I encourage this fondness to grow into something more, I need to know whether these feelings of hers are shared by you. Forgive my bluntness, but do you have any… intentions regarding Anisette? And I know this is an inopportune time—”
“It is, I confess, not the best moment—”
“—but a mother must always protect the heart of a child as dear as Anisette, and if your feelings are not aligned with hers, then I need to prepare her as best I can for the—well, for the blow that will cause.”
“I assure you, I am quite fond of Anisette,” he said. “But now isn’t the right time for me to make any… declarations.”
“Of course,” she said, with a grim set to her eyes. “I think I take your meaning.”
Why was he being coy? He could vow to make Anisette the queen of Scotland or the queen of the moon. In a few minutes, all his promises would be null and void.
“You’re not pledged to another, are you?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” he said. “But with so much on the agenda for today—”
“No one said it had to be today!” Mrs. Bingham tittered with obvious relief. “But is it safe to say that we are in accord regarding the future of your acquaintance with Anisette?”
“Quite safe,” he said, and when Mrs. Bingham winked at him, he winked back. If he could speak in a voice that wasn’t his, and kill for a cause he didn’t believe in, then why couldn’t he make promises he could never keep? It was easier to let everyone bask in the warm glow of dashing Sir Angus right up until the moment it all collapsed, like this city of the future built to impress but not to endure.
The line shivered with a spasm of whispers like the night sounds of crickets—had the German ambassador made an appearance, too?—and then Anisette poked her doll’s face through the crowd and said, “Maman! The king!” and sure enough the king was striding past them, politely waving, and then the queen as well, and then they were gone, moving quickly and apologetically past the line and out another set of doors. The crowd was stunned into silence. Written on their faces: elation turned to dejection; a welter of voices, half-formed questions and expressions of pique and gall. The man with the lapel pin reappeared before the doors of the banquet hall and raised his hand to call for quiet. “On behalf of Their Majesties and the commissioner of the World’s Fair, Grover Whalen,” he began, and the rest came in bursts barely audible through the thicket of disappointed American gentry: delayed, regrets, unprecedented, regrets, overwhelmed, regrets, outpouring, regrets. Someone in the throng demanded to speak to Whalen, another to the mayor, and a third to the governor. Still another called for an investigation of this so-called random-number generator.