"No. He is going to consider my application, and will give me his answer to-morrow morning."
John Turner set down the vinegar bottle and looked across the table at me with an expression of wonder on his broad face.
"Well, I never! Did you see Madame? Clever woman, Madame. Gives excellent dinners."
"Yes; I was presented to her."
"Ah! A match for you, Mr. Dick. Did you notice her feet?"
"I noticed that they were well shod."
"Just so!" muttered John Turner, who was now engaged in gastronomic delights. "In France a clever woman is always bien chaussée. Her brains run to her toes. In England it is different. If a woman has a brain it undermines her morals or ruins her waist."
"Only the plain women," suggested I, who had passed several seasons in London not altogether in vain.
"A pretty woman is never clever—she is too wise," said John Turner, stolidly, and he sipped his chablis.
The mysterious sauce with which this great gastronome flavoured his oysters was now prepared, while I, it must be confessed, had consumed my portion, and John Turner relapsed into silence. I watched him as he ate delicately, slowly, with a queer refinement. Many are ready to talk of some crafts under the name of art, which must now, forsooth, be spelt with a capital letter—why, I know no more than the artists. John Turner had his Art, and now exercised it. I always noticed that during the earlier and more piquant courses of a meal he was cynical and apt to give speech on matters of human meanness and vanity not unknown to many who are silent about them. Later on, when the dishes became more succulent, so would his views of life sweeten and acquire a mellower flavour. His round face now began to beam more pleasantly at me across the well-served table, like a rich autumn moon rising over a fat land.