"Oh, but I can't; you must do all that, please. You don't know how beautiful it is to be taken care of again."
"Is it?" They smiled at each other across the little table, and the old understanding sprang up between them.
"You're looking very charming," he said, when he had given the waiter his preliminary instructions. "You may abuse the food at your place as much as you like, but it certainly seems to agree with you."
"I don't think," said Katharine carelessly, "that it has anything to do with the food."
"Of course not; my mistake. No doubt it is natural charm triumphing over difficulties. Try some of this, to begin with; bootlaces or sardines?"
Katharine looked perplexed.
"What a delightful child you are," he laughed. "It's to give you an appetite for the rest. I advise the bootlaces. Nonsense! you must do as you are told, for a change. I am not one of your pupils. Besides, it is the first day of the holidays."
And Katharine, who had no desire for a larger appetite than she already possessed, ate the hors d'œuvre with a relish, and longed for more, and wondered if she should ever attain to the extreme culture of her companion, who was playing delicately with the sardine on his plate.
"Don't you ever feel hungry?" she asked him. "It seems to add to your isolation that you have none of the ordinary frailties of the flesh. I really believe it would quite destroy my illusion of you, if I ever caught you enjoying a penny bun!"
"You may preserve the illusion, if you like, and remember that I am not a woman. It is only women who— Well, what is it now, child?"