"No, dear, just—er—Weber and Fields'. Do you mind?"
"Oh, Letitia," I said in a shocked voice, though I could scarcely repress a smile of joy, "I am amazed. I should never have thought it of you. Still, if you insist,—well, let us go to Weber and Fields'. We can leave when we are disgusted."
"I shall stay till the end," announced Letitia firmly, "and I hope it lasts until midnight. That is the way I feel to-night."
[CHAPTER VIII]
While a well-selected little restaurant dinner undoubtedly loosens the trammels of a too obdurate and persistent domesticity, the restaurant breakfast can scarcely be said to be conducive to an overweening amiability. Those who have tried it will not be inclined to dispute the matter. It is in the early morn that the term restaurant seems singularly inappropriate. The luminous, glittering, chattering resort where, at night, one may throw off one's care and temporarily forget one's home and mother, is, in the forenoon, but—an eating house. One is there, in vulgar materialism—to eat! The boiled-egg moment, that the mere ethics of good taste assign to privacy—with the morning ablutions and the care of the teeth—is a tragedy when translated into publicity. Conviviality, at the boiled-egg moment, is an impossibility. Ordinary courtesy is abstruse and difficult. Silence, the morning papers, the birth of one's daily attitude—the natural cravings of the hour—give way to the gloomy desolation of the public resort. Cheek-by-jowl with other unfortunates, in whom it is hope to discover an interest—for altruism is not born until noon, and mere selfishness monopolizes the morning hours—the meal is a detestable torture, worthy of a place in the catalogue of mediæval horrors.
Yet Letitia and I came to it. We came to it next morning. There were no warm slippers for me; there was no loose dressing-gown for Letitia. We dressed; we put on our bonnets and shawls; we sallied forth to boiled egg. We were rather sullen about our sallying, and being devoid of a sense of humor, we saw nothing amusing in the empty glory of our prettily furnished apartment. I am told that the situation would have been saved, for the humorously born, by this mere idea. Yet I am still thankful for my mental inability to rout tragedy by comedy.
Letitia looked at me unaffectionately; I was able to regard Letitia without rapture. The maintenance of the honeymoon mood is generally strenuous—which is not meant for cynicism—but the honeymoon in its most effulgent radiance must pale, as Lubin and Dulcinea seek their boiled egg abroad. Alas!
"I dare not try it, Letitia," I said, shivering, as a morning waiter, in evening dress, set the terrible thing before me. "I have a horrible presentiment that it is bad. I don't know why, but I can't shake off the idea. Eggs are such a lottery."