"Could you?" said the Doctor; then, after looking up at her, adding very quickly, "Ah, but you must not. I don't want to hear a list of my shortcomings, or a catalogue of my faults. I'm too old to make up for the one or get rid of the other; and---- Mrs. Derinzy, I must congratulate you on your cook. It is rare indeed, in what I may be pardoned in calling these out-of-the-way regions, that one comes across anything like this filet de sole."
He turned his face towards his hostess as he said these words, and spoke in her direction, but he scarcely moved his eyes from direct contemplation of Annette. The girl's face, with the same flush on it, was looking down, and she seemed to be working nervously with her hands, rapidly intertwining and then separating them, under the table.
Captain Derinzy, at the Doctor's last remark, had given vent to a very curious sound, half-sigh of self-commiseration, half a grunt of contempt. He had not learned much in the half-century during which he had adorned life--his natural gifts had been small, and he had not taken much trouble to improve upon them--but one thing he had arrived at, and that was an appreciation of good cooking. He not merely knew the difference between good and bad dishes--in itself by no means a common acquirement--but he had a knowledge of the arcana of the art, and great high-priests whose temples were the kitchens of London clubs had taken his opinion on the merits of various plats.
"Well," he said, after a moment, "that's a funny thing! I know you, Wainwright. You're not the kind of fellow to go in for politeness, and all that kind of thing--I mean, of course, flummery, you know, and all that--and yet you say we've got a good cook, and this is nice filet de sole! Why, there are fellows used to tell you about doctors, you know--'Oh yes, it's all very fine,' they used to say, 'for doctors to tell you not to eat this, and not to drink that, and all the time they're regular gourmets, don't you know!' Well, I think that's all stuff, for my part. They may know all very well about broth and beef-tea, and all that sort of beastliness that they give people when they're getting better; but I only knew one of 'em that ever knew anything really about cooking, and he was an old fellow who'd been out in India, and was a C.B., or something of that sort; and he told the cook at Windham how to make a curry--peculiar kind of thing, quite different from what you get mostly--that was delicious, by Jove! As for this stuff," continued the Captain, taking up a portion of the lauded filet on the end of his fork, and eyeing it with great disgust, "it's dry and tough and leathery, and tastes like badly-baked flannel-waistcoat, by Jove!"
During this speech Dr. Wainwright, although his polite attention to it had been obvious, had scarcely removed his glance from Annette. It remained on her as he said, turning his face in the Captain's direction, and laughing heartily:
"I never tasted badly-baked flannel-waistcoat, Captain Derinzy, and I still stand up for the excellence of the filet. However, I'm not going to be led into giving any opinion whether we're good judges of good living, or rather whether we exemplify the well-known exceptions which prove rules by not practising what we preach. But one thing can't be denied--that we hear of very curious stories about fancies in eating and drinking. I heard of one only the other day, of an old gentleman who had had the same breakfast for thirty years; and what do you think, Mrs. Derinzy, were its component parts?"
Mrs. Derinzy, also curiously observant of Annette, roused from her quiet watchfulness, and gave herself up to guessing. Tea, coffee, milk, cream, porridge, toast, ham, eggs, she suggested; while claret, brandy-and-soda, anchovy, devilled anything, and bitter beer in a tankard, were proposed by her husband. The Doctor shook his head at all these items, grimly saying:
"What should you say to Irish stew and hot whisky-and-water?"
"Heavens!" cried Mrs. Derinzy.
"For breakfast?" asked the Captain.