“I certainly would before I walked very far.”
“Then I’m going to ask you.”
He raised his hat.
“I beg pardon, madame, but would you be so good––”
“Oh, turn to the right,” she laughed. “And do put on your hat.”
It was a quiet little French restaurant of the better kind to which he took her––a place he had stumbled on one evening, and to which he occasionally went when the club menu did not appeal to him. Jacques had reserved a table in a corner, and had arranged there the violets that Monsieur Pendleton had sent for this purpose. On the whole, it was just as well Miss Winthrop did not know this, or of the tip that was to lead to a certain kind of salad and to an extravagant dish with mushrooms to come later. It is certain that Monsieur Pendleton knew how to arrange a dinner from every other but the economical end.
Don was very much himself to-night, and in an exceedingly good humor. In no time he made her also feel very much herself and put 117 her into an equally good humor. Her cares, her responsibilities, her fears, vanished as quickly as if the last three or four years had taught her nothing. She had started with set lips, and here she was with smiling ones. In the half-hour that she waited in her room for him, she had rehearsed a half-dozen set speeches; now she did not recall one of them.
Don suggested wine, but she shook her head. She had no need of wine. It was wine enough just to be out of her room at night; wine enough just to get away from the routine of her own meals; wine enough just not to be alone; wine enough just to get away from her own sex for a little.
Don chatted on aimlessly through the anchovies, the soup, and fish, and she enjoyed listening to him. He was the embodiment of youth, and he made even her feel like a care-free girl of sixteen again. This showed in her face, in the relaxed muscles about her mouth, and in her brightened eyes.
Then, during the long wait for the steak and mushrooms, his face became serious, and he leaned across the table.