“If you do not eat, you will be ill. Remember, we do not get to Elberthal before eight,” said he. “Is it perhaps disagreeable to you to eat in the saal? If you like we can have a private room.”
“It is not that at all,” I replied; and seeing that he looked surprised, I blurted out the truth. “I have no money. I gave my purse to Miss Hallam’s maid to keep and she has taken it with her.”
With a laugh, in which, infectious though it was, I was too wretched to join:
“Is that all? Kellner!” cried he.
An obsequious waiter came up, smiled sweetly and meaningly at us, received some orders from my companion, and disappeared.
He seated himself beside me at the little round table.
“He will bring something at once,” said he, smiling.
I sat still. I was not happy, and yet I could not feel all the unhappiness which I considered appropriate to the circumstances.
My companion took up a “Kölnische Zeitung,” and glanced over the advertisements, while I looked a little stealthily at him, and for the first time took in more exactly what he was like, and grew more puzzled with him each moment. As he leaned upon the table, one slight, long, brown hand propping his head, and half lost in the thick, fine brown hair which waved in large, ample waves over his head, there was an indescribable grace, ease, and negligent beauty in the attitude. Move as he would, let him assume any possible or impossible attitude, there was still in the same grace, half careless, yet very dignified in the position he took.