“I wonder if he finds our food very American 83 in character, now,” she said to herself, with a blush at the memory of the real southern cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were offered him in the initial weeks of his patronage. Gaspard still made these delicacies for luncheon, but they had been almost entirely banished from the dinner menu. Afternoon tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful waffles produced with Parisian precision from a traditional Virginian recipe, but Collier Pratt never appeared at either of these meals to criticize them for being American.
CHAPTER VI
An Eleemosynary Institution
One night during the latter part of July Betty had a birthday, and according to immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and Dick and Billy helped her to celebrate it at one of the old-fashioned down-town hotels where they had ordered practically the same dinner for her anniversaries ever since they had been grown up enough to celebrate them unchaperoned. Caroline’s brother, Preston, had made a sixth member of the party for the first two or three years, but he had been located in London since then, in charge of the English office of his firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed a month after he and Betty, who had been sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.
Nancy stayed by the celebration until about half past nine, and then Dick put her into a taxi-cab, and she fled back to her responsibilities as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to meet the others later for the rounding out of the evening. As she drew up before the big 85 gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted. The waitresses were busy clearing away the few cluttered tables left by the last late guests, and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl were frankly holding hands across the table, while they whispered earnestly of some impending parting. The big canopy of striped awning cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the rather heavy air of the evening bad been punctured occasionally by a swift scattering of rain. Nancy was half-way across the court before she realized that Collier Pratt was still occupying his accustomed seat under the shadow of the big Venus. She had not seen him face to face or communicated with him since the day she had looked him up in the telephone book and sent his cape to him by special messenger. She stopped involuntarily as she reached his side, and he looked up and smiled as he recognized her.
“You’re late again, Miss Ann Martin,” he said, rising and pulling out a chair for her opposite his own. “I think perhaps I can pull the wires and procure you some sustenance if you will say the word.”
“I’ve no word to say,” Nancy said, “but how 86 do you do? I’ve just dined elsewhere. I only stopped in here for a moment to get something—something I left here at lunch.”
“In that case I’ll offer you a drop of Michael’s tea in my water glass.” He poured a tablespoonful or so of claret from the teapot into the glass of ice-water before him, and added several lumps of sugar to the concoction, which he stirred gravely for some time before he offered it to her. “I never touch water myself. This is eau rougie as the French children drink it. It’s really better for you than ice-cream and a glass of water.”
“And less American,” Nancy murmured with her eyes down.