“And less American,” he acquiesced blandly.
Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt stirred the dregs in his coffee cup—Nancy had overheard some of her patrons remarking on the curious habits of a man who consumed a pot of tea and a pot of coffee at one and the same meal—and they regarded each other for some time in silence. Michael and Hildeguard, Molly and Dolly and two others of the staff of girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in Nancy’s range of vision, and whispering to one 87 another excitedly concerning the phenomenon that met their eyes.
“The little girl?” Nancy said, trying to ignore the composite scrutiny to which she was being subjected, by turning determinedly to her companion, “the little girl that you spoke of—is she well?”
“She’s as well as a motherless baby could be, subjected to the irregularities of a life like mine. Still she seems to thrive on it.”
“Is she yours?” Nancy asked.
“Yes, she’s mine,” Collier Pratt said, gravely dismissing the subject, and leaving Nancy half ashamed of her boldness in putting the question, half possessed of a madness to know the answer at any cost.
“I’ve discovered something very interesting,” Collier Pratt said, after an interval in which Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant of her struggle with her curiosity; “in fact, it’s one of the most interesting discoveries that I have made in the course of a not unadventurous life. Do you come to this restaurant often?”
“Quite often,” Nancy equivocated, “earlier in the day. For luncheon and for tea.”
“I come here almost every night of my life,” 88 Collier Pratt declared, “and I intend to continue to come so long as le bon Dieu spares me my health and my epicurean taste. You know that I spoke of the food here before. The character of it has changed entirely. It’s unmistakably French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of Paris or Vienna I have never tasted such soups, such sauce, such delicate and suggestive flavors. My entire existence has been revolutionized by the experience. I am no longer the lonely and unhappy man you discovered at this gate a short month ago. I can not cavil at an America that furnishes me with such food as I get in this place.
“Man may live without friends, and may live without books.