He called a hansom, and they smoothly rolled to Earl's Court.
When sovereigns are rare possessions, how commanding an air the feel of one imparts! Mary watched her George with pride. How masterful was he! How deferential the head waiter at the restaurant in the Exhibition became! The man was putting them off with an inner table. Her George by a look and a word had him in a minute to right-abouts, and one of the coveted tables upon the verandah was theirs. Waiters flocked about. With such an air did George command the cheapest wine upon the list that the waiter, whose lip ordinarily would have curled at such an order, hastened to its execution with dignity of task, deference of service.
They ate robustly through the menu: faltered not nor checked at a single dish. They passed remarks upon their neighbours. At intervals George would say, “Isn't this fine, Mary?”; or his Mary would say, “Oh, Georgie, isn't this splendid?” And the other would answer, “Rather!”
A meal and a conversation to make your proper lovers shudder! There was no nibbling at and toying with food; there was no drinking and feasting from the light of one another's eyes. When George felt thirsty he would put his nose in the cheap claret and keep it there till mightily refreshed; such hungry yearnings as his Mary felt she satisfied with knife and fork. These were very simple children and exceedingly healthy.
But while his Mary's tongue ached with a cold, cold ice, George was in the pangs of mental arithmetic. As the bill stood, that pregnant sovereign had given birth to all the delights of which it was capable; was shattered and utterly wrecked in child-bed.
A waiter came bustling. There was just time. George leant across. “Mary, when I ask you if you'll have coffee, say you prefer it outside—it's cheaper there.”
“Coffee, sir?”
“Special coffee,” George ordered nonchalantly. “Yes, two. One moment. Would you rather have your coffee outside near the band, Mary?”
His Mary was splendid. She looked around the room, she looked into the cool night—and there her eye longer lingered. “It's cooler outside,” she said. “I think it would be nicer outside, if you don't mind.”
“All right.”