“Oh, I should simply insist on your coming in now,” she cried gaily, at the door of the boot-shop, in answer to his mock look of deferential inquiry.
CHAPTER II
There surely was never such another breakfast in the world!
She spoke with frank sincerity. Upon afterthought she added: “I don’t believe any woman could order a meal like that. You men always know so much about eating.” Mosscrop leant back in his chair, crossed his knees, and took a cigar from his pocket. His mind ran in pleasurable retrospect over the dishes—a fragrant omelette with mushrooms, a sole Marguerite, a delicate little steak that had been steeped in oil over night, a pulpy Italian cheese which he never got elsewhere than here. The tall-shouldered, urnshaped green bottle on the table still held a little Capri, and he poured it into her glass.
“Yes,” he assented, “I find myself paying more attention to food as I get older. It is the badge of advancing years. It is a good little restaurant, isn’t it? I come here a great deal.”
“And that is how you are able to order such wonderful breakfasts for hungry young ladies. It comes of practice. Do they all enjoy it as much as I have?”
“You mustn’t ask things like that,” he remonstrated, smilingly, as he lit a match. “I hope you don’t mind?—thanks.” He regarded her contemplatively through the dissolving haze of the first mouthful of smoke. They had the small upstairs dining-room to themselves, and she, from her seat by the window, let her glances wander from him to the street below, and back again, with a charming, child-like effect of being delighted with everything. The sight of her opposite him stirred new emotions in his being. He imported a gentle gravity into his smile, and dropped the jesting tone from his voice. “No—we must play that I have never breakfasted with anybody before—like this—either here or anywhere else. Let us both start fresh on our birthday. We wipe everything off the slate, and make a clean beginning. First of all, you haven’t told me your name.”
“My name is Vestalia Peaussier.”