“What thing is that, Gaspard?”
“Those calories.”
“Why, Gaspard, surely you’re used to working with tables now. It must be almost second nature to you. My whole end and aim has been to serve a balanced ration.”
“I know, but the ration when he is right, 225 he balances himself. These tables they are like the steps in dancing—to learn and to forget. I figure all day all night to get those calories, and then I find I have eight—and eight are so little—lesser than I would have had without the figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself one piece of sweetmeat outside, he has more than made it up.”
“I always have worried about what they eat between meals,” Nancy said,—“but that, of course, we can’t regulate.”
“Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and cook like the bourgeoisie for a week or two of trials?”
“Yes, I think you could, Gaspard,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “Go to it, as we say, and I won’t interfere in any way. Maybe they’d like it. Perhaps our food is getting to be too much like hotel food, anyway.”
She knew in her heart that the gradually increasing scale of luxury on which she had been running her cuisine had been largely due to her desire to provide Collier Pratt with all the delicacies he loved, without making the fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared dishes sent out to his table had become a matter 226 of so much comment among the members of the staff, and the target of so much piquant satire from Betty that she had become sensitive on the subject, especially since Betty had access to the books, and knew in actual dollars and cents how much this favoritism was costing her. Now that matters had been settled between herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed of this elaboration of method. It was so simple a thing to love a man and give him all you had, with the eyes of the world upon you, if necessary. She felt that she handled the matter rather unworthily.
She had also a consultation with Molly and Dolly about the economic problem, and discovered that they agreed with Gaspard about the unnecessary extravagance of her management.
“Them health foods,” Dolly said,—she was not the more grammatical of the twins, “the ones that gets them regular gets so tired of them, or else they gets where they don’t need them any more. There’s one girl that crumbs up her health muffins and puts them on the window-sill every day when I ain’t looking, so’s not to hurt my feelings.”