Edgar knew her well enough to leave her to her thoughts through the long wait and into the second course. Then he remonstrated. “You’re not drinking. You’re not eating. You’re not listening—I’ve asked you a question twice.”
“Yes, I was listening,” replied Emily—“listening to a voice I don’t like to hear, yet wouldn’t silence if I could—the voice of experience.”
“Well—you look as if you’d had a lot of experience—I was going to say, you look sadder, but it isn’t that. And—you’re more beautiful than ever, Emily. You always did have remarkable eyes, and now they’re—simply wonderful and mysterious.”
Emily laughed. “Oh, they’re hiding such secrets—such secrets!”
“Yes, I suppose you have been through a lot. You talk more like a married woman than a young girl. But of course you don’t know life as a man knows it. No nice woman can.”
“Can a nice man?”
“Oh, there aren’t any nice men. At least you’d hate a nice man. I think a fellow ought to be experienced, ought to go around and learn what’s what, and then he ought to settle down. Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure. I’m afraid a good many of that kind of fellows are no more attractive than the ‘nice’ men. Still, it’s surprising how little of you men’s badness gets beyond the surface. You come in and hold up your dirty hands and faces for us women to wash. And we wash them, and you are shiny and clean and all ready to be husbands and fathers. I think I’ve seen signs of late that little Edgar Wayland wishes to have his hands and face washed.”
The red wine at this restaurant in the Rue Marivaux is mild and smooth, but full of sentiment and courage. Edgar had made up for Emily’s neglect of it, and it enabled him to advance boldly to the settlement of a matter which he had long had in mind, as Emily would have seen, had she not been so intent upon her own affairs.
“Yes—I do want my hands and face washed,” he said nervously, turning his glass by its stem round and round upon the table. “And I want you to do it, Emmy.”