"Well, to-morrow night we dine at home, Letitia," I remarked rather haughtily, "for I have invited Arthur Tamworth, who is quite an epicure. When we get back from the restaurant we will arrange a little menu, and Anna can then give us a taste of her quality."
"And I dare say that she will," said Letitia, bestowing a kiss upon me. "Probably she is an exceedingly good cook. We are paying her heavy wages, Archie—the wages of a very good cook, Aunt Julia says. I don't fancy that Anna is the woman to sail under false colors—"
"Unless mauve be a false color," I interposed wittily, and then we both laughed and good temper was restored. Like a couple of children, we went gaily off to the restaurant, with ne'er a thought of the cold sausage and the buff salad that graced our own mahogany.
It was a very long and well-furnished dinner, but it was not too long for us. We were famished. At various times I have seen Letitia "toy" with her food. I have often told her that she merely coquetted with her meals. But now she labored strenuously, and this dinner was a serious affair. We were both too busy even to talk. The waiters looked at us in amazement, as they removed dish after dish, with naught to tell the tale of its quality. It was even alarming. It was not until we had arrived at the coffee that we paused in our mad career. Letitia glanced at me a trifle shamefacedly, I thought; I returned the glance, perhaps a bit abashed. Possibly she was vexed that she had shattered the rose-leaf-and-dewdrop theory, for she had certainly done so. I had never seen her in the desperation of hunger, simply battling for food.
"We were hungry," said Letitia, with a little sigh of greedy satisfaction, as I lighted a cigarette. And I was glad that she included me. It put her at ease and, as a matter of fact, I had been just as ardent. It was unusual—but it seemed better for her to be plural in her remarks.
"If Anna saw us," I was puffing contentedly at my cigarette, "I don't think she would suggest another delicatessen dinner. Oh, those pickles—that sausage—the ecru potato muddle! Really, Letitia—"
"I suppose that when one is positively hungry," Letitia murmured, "such food is trying. Few cooks, however, anticipate appetites like ours, dear."
Once again I was included. It was quite natural that Letitia should arraign me with herself. But the idea dawned upon me that though I had done my duty to this dinner just as nobly as had my wife—her appetite, for a fragile girl, was really more extraordinary than was mine for a full-fledged man.
As soon as we were home again, Letitia suggested that we start at once to arrange the little menu for the dinner at which Arthur Tamworth was to be present on the following evening. We sat in the drawing-room, although we should have preferred the cozier dining-room. In that apartment, however, the delicatessen dinner was still laid. We took one look at it and then fled. In our state of repletion it seemed too insolent to endure. Anna was not there to remove it, and Letitia's education was such that the sordid details of clearing a table were a bit beyond her.
"I wish," she said, "that we had arranged this menu before dinner. It is hard to think up things, after one has dined so well."