Half an hour later she slipped out, and along the street Gaga was waiting. He raised his hat—a thing Toby would never have done if he had left her so recently—and fell into step beside her. Sally shot a bright eye full of assurance. As Gaga showed himself nervous, so her assurance increased.
"Where would you like to go?" asked Gaga.
"Oo, you know better than ... I do," answered Sally, meekly. He stopped for a moment; then turned eastward; then stopped afresh, hesitating until Sally slightly frowned.
"Yes, we'll go to the Singe d'Or," he explained. "Unless you.... No, we'll go to the Rezzonico. You'd like to have music, I expect. You know, it's awfully good of you to come. I've wanted to talk to you ever since I heard you sing so beautifully."
The Love Path! Sally gave a start. What had Mrs. Perce said! Sally might not have a fortune in her voice, she mischievously thought; but at least she had a dinner! Well, master Toby; and what did he think of that, if you please?
"I'm very fond of music," she said, glibly.
"I could tell...." There was a pause. "Do you ... do you sing much?"
"No, not much." Sally was speaking like a lady. "Ai ... a ... don't get very much taime. I'm very fond of. It's so ... it's so...." She was rather lost for a phrase that should sound well.
"Quite, quite," agreed Gaga, eagerly.
"I wish I could play," Sally hurried to say, feeling that she had failed in effectiveness. He was loud in protest against her modesty. "Well, I mean, I've never—well, hardly ever—had any lessons. No, nor my voice. It's just ear. Mrs. P—— a friend of maine says I've got a very quick ear." Every now and then Sally was betrayed into Nosey-like refinement. She fought against it from an instinctive feeling that it was meretricious. But at the same time she was speaking with instinctive care, so as to avoid Cockney phrases, and pronunciations, and tones. She wanted him to think her—something that she called "nice." They walked the length of Regent Street, chatting thus; and at last reached the gilded Rezzonico, where there were liveried men who seized Gaga's hat and stick, and maîtres d'hôtel who hurried them this way and that in search of a table in the crowded, din-filled room. The walls were covered with enormous mirrors which were surrounded by gaudy mouldings. Tables were everywhere, and all appeared to be occupied. Men and women in evening dress, men and women in morning clothes, some of the women painted, others ordinary respectable members of the bourgeoisie, were sitting and dining and smoking and chattering loudly. Glasses, cigarettes, bottles, all sorts of dishes, strewn upon the tables, caught Sally's bewildered eye. Above all, a scratching orchestra rasped out a selection from one of Verdi's operas. A huge unmanageable noise of talk and laughter swelled the torrent of sound. Deafened, her nerve destroyed, Sally timidly followed the apparently aimless wanderings of Gaga and the maîtres d'hôtel, her shoulders stiff with self-consciousness in face of so many staring eyes and well-fed, well-dressed creatures; and at last they found a table. It was a bad table, in the middle of the room, near the band and the cash desk and a sort of sideboard into which bottles were ceaselessly dumped. A very old waiter, with white side whiskers like those of the late Emperor Franz Josef, very foreign and therefore particularly liable to misconstrue Gaga's stammered orders, served them with hors d'oeuvres, slashing down upon Sally's plate inconceivable mixtures of white and red and green fragments; and then hurried away as fast as his bunions allowed. Gaga was left to choose the wine, which he managed to do after many consultations with Sally and the waiter, and many changes of mind upon his own account. Sally riddled all his uncertainties with a merciless eye. He apparently knew a wine-list when he saw one; but his nervousness was so palpable that she was inclined even to suspect his knowledge. It was an injustice. She soon realised that the band was too noisy for talk, and the sideboard too shattering even for coherent thought. She knew, in fact, at the first encounter, that this was a bad table, and that bad tables were to be avoided by any expert eye. She knew the waiter was a bad waiter, and that Gaga was a bad host. She had her first lesson in the art of dining out at a restaurant.