Little Dinners With the Sphinx, and Other Prose Fancies

LITTLE DINNERS WITH THE SPHINX AND OTHER PROSE FANCIES
AND OTHER PROSE FANCIES By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE New York MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1907 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY, NEW YORK. PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1907. TO EVA



THE Sphinx and I had not met for quite a long time. We hadn’t dined together for—O I should think—four years; and it was strange to both of us to be sitting opposite to each other once more in the friendly glitter of a little dinner table—that glitter which is made up of skillfully mitigated electric light falling on various delicate objects of pleasure: the slim, fluted crystal of the wineglasses, the lustral linen, the tinkling ice in its silver jug, the moon-white roses, and the opals on the Sphinx’s long fingers.
We were both a trifle conscious, and we looked at each other half inquiringly across the table.
“Are we the same people?” presently asked the Sphinx.
“Of course, you are, my dear Sphinx; but I hope, for your sake, that I am not.”
“For my sake?”
“I mean that it is a poor compliment to a woman one adores always to bring the same man to dinner.”