And she laughed also. "Shall I tell you one thing that puts me against these restaurants?" she went on. "It's the feeling you have that you don't know where the food's been. When you've got your kitchen close to your dining-room and you can keep an eye on the stuff from the moment the cart brings it, well, then, you do know a bit where you are. And you can have your dishes served hot. It stands to reason," she said. "Where is the kitchen here?"
"Somewhere down below," he replied apologetically.
"A cellar kitchen!" she exclaimed. "Why, in Putney they simply can't let houses with cellar kitchens. No! No restaurants and hotels for me--not for choice--that is, regularly."
"Still," he said, with a judicial air, "hotels are very convenient."
"Are they?" she said, meaning, "Prove it."
"For instance, here, there's a telephone in every room."
"You don't mean in the bedrooms?"
"Yes, in every bedroom."
"Well," she said, "you wouldn't catch me having a telephone in my bedroom. I should never sleep if I knew there was a telephone in the room! Fancy being forced to telephone every time you want--well! I And how is one to know who there is at the other end of the telephone? No, I don't like that. All that's all very well for gentlemen that haven't been used to what I call comfort in a way of speaking. But----"
He saw that if he persisted, nothing soon would be left of that noble pile, the Grand Babylon Hotel, save a heap of ruins. And, further, she genuinely did cause him to feel that throughout his career he had always missed the very best things of life, through being an uncherished, ingenuous, easily satisfied man. A new sensation for him! For if any male in Europe believed in his own capacity to make others make him comfortable Priam Farll was that male.