“I’ll sample your hotel, if you don’t mind, and you will dine with me.”
“And afterward we must go to one of the big cafés for coffee. That is the proper thing.”
“You shall have your way in trifles so long as I have beaten you twice.”
They found a cab near one of the gates of the park, and drove as rapidly to the hotel as the fat driver and lean horse could be persuaded to go, and both too hungry for further nonsense. They had an admirable luncheon, in spite of the fact that it was not the “high season,” and then were directed to the Café Luitpold for their coffee. It was full of students, the “trees” covered with their caps of every color, and the atmosphere dense with smoke. They found a table in an alcove, and Julia lit a cigarette with the agreeable sensation of having come at last to the real Bohemia.
“Now,” said Tay, “I’ve got you where you can’t escape, and there are no English people to overhear. I propose to know what you think you are this morning. You are playing some sort of a part, and a charming enough part it is, but for complete enjoyment I must be on. I only half understand. Out with it.”
Julia leaned her head against the wall and smiled.
“I don’t mind telling you in the least. I am just eighteen, and I have just arrived from Nevis. I never had time to be really young, you know. So here is my opportunity.”
“You look the rôle, but how—well, you are young enough in any case; but how do you manage to relight the eighteen candles? You’ve lived some since then. I couldn’t do it!”
Julia smiled mysteriously. “We never really exhaust any phase, particularly of youth. It is merely stowed away waiting for the current. Mine leaped up at the first signal. You appeared with the battery, and presto!”
“You suppressed it mighty well for quite two weeks.”