"Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks," but naturally bless everything in which We are concerned, as We are certain to be above reproach. I'm afraid that's quite of a piece with the calm confidence we have in our own superiority, although I daresay I should never have realised it if it weren't for Mr. Potter Parker and his perky nose.
It began to be less perky when we were all settled at a table in a perfectly charming restaurant, the most restful place to eat in that I ever saw. I can't imagine even a fiend being ill-tempered in it for long; and it was deliciously cool, as if we had come into a shadowy green wood after the blazing, brassy glare of the streets.
The big room really was rather like a wood, so the simile isn't far-fetched;--an open space in a wood, ringed round with tall trees bending their branches low over a still pool. The soothing brown of the wainscoted walls gave the tree-trunk effect; the great hanging baskets of ferns and moss that swung from the ceiling were the tree-branches; and the many round, snow-white tables, with green velvet chairs grouped closely round them on the polished floor were the water-lilies with green pads floating on the surface of the pond.
Nearly everything we had for lunch was in a more or less advanced state of frozenness, from the bouillon, ever so far along to the ices in the shape of different-coloured fruits, toward the end. Nevertheless, all of us, except Potter, drank iced water instead of wine whenever we stopped eating for an instant, or couldn't think of anything particular to say; and the more we had the more we seemed to want. There was a kind of iced-water curse upon us.
It has never occurred to Vic or me to lie down in the afternoon, though she tries to sleep a little sometimes if she's going to a ball. But when we got home, Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took it quite as a matter of course that we would lie down before going to Coney Island to dine and see fireworks and other things. They were surprised when I didn't want to, but Mrs. Ess Kay said in that case Potter would entertain me while they rested. I told her it wasn't necessary, but Potter wanted me to bet my sweet life that it was just the one Proposition on earth for him, so he and Vivace and I sat in the fountain court while Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally went upstairs.
Potter was suddenly a changed man, as soon as he and I were alone together, becoming exactly what he had been yesterday when I first ran downstairs, and he introduced himself.
He didn't chaff me about my country, and make fun of our government, or hint that American men were the only men living who knew how to treat women, as he seemed to delight in doing when his sister and cousin were with us. He began by offering to teach me some of his best slang; but as the lesson went on, it turned out to be rather more like a lesson in flirtation.
I would have been even more startled than I was, if I hadn't already had a little experience on board ship, with Mr. Doremus. At home I've often thought it must be very pleasant to be out, and able to flirt; but I never had a chance, because, as Vic said, it was her turn first, and the only young man, not a relation, that I ever talked with alone was the curate, who would as soon have tried to flirt with a Bishopess as with one of Mother's daughters.
But I like Mr. Doremus' kind of flirtation almost better than Mr. Parker's. Mr. Doremus makes you feel as if you were a beautiful young heroine in a play, and you are almost sorry there is no audience to applaud the witty things he says, and the smart answers he inspires you to think of, just as if he were giving you a clue.
Potter is different, and instead of an audience you want a kind of perpetual chaperon, not a Briareus creature with lots of hands to applaud.