The stranger laughed. “According to the American ideal,” he said, “they are—but I do admit that they show a rather extraordinary imagination. I’ve often thought that I should like to make the acquaintance of the woman,—of 57 course, it’s a woman—who conceived the notion of this mortuary tea-room.”
“Why, of course, is it a woman?”
“A man wouldn’t set up housekeeping in—in Père Lachaise.”
“Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking corner?”
“He wouldn’t in the first place, it wouldn’t occur to him, that’s all, and if he did he couldn’t get away with it. The only real drawback to this hostelry is, as you know, that they don’t serve spirits of any kind. I’m accustomed to a glass or two of wine with my dinner, and my food sticks in my throat when I can’t have it, but I’ve found a way around that, now.”
“Oh! have you?” said Nancy.
“Don’t give me away, but there’s a man about the place here whose name is Michael, and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility with Celtic canniness that makes the Irish so wonderful as a race. I told my trouble to Michael,—with the result that I get a teapot full of Chianti with my dinner every night, and no questions asked.”
“Oh! you do?” gasped Nancy.
“You see Michael is serving the best interests 58 of his employer, who wants to keep her patrons, because if I couldn’t have it I wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t trouble the lady about it, naturally, because it is technically an offense against the law. Come, let’s go and find a quiet corner where we can continue our conversation comfortably. There’s a painfully respectable little hotel around the corner here that looks like the Café L’avenue when you first go in, but is a place where the most bourgeoise of one’s aunts might put up.”
“I—I don’t know that I can go,” said Nancy.