"We'll even let you have the eternal broiled lamb chop without hooting."
A flurry of snow fine as sand drove down the street.
"What do you think of this for the Boston climate?" said Nan.
"Here we are!"
The restaurant was nearly empty. They shook the snow off their overcoats and settled themselves at the round table in the window.
"What's so nice about this place, in spite of the garlic and the stains on the cloth and everything," Fanshaw was saying, "Is that it gives us a breathing space from Boston, a quiet eminence where we can sit undisturbed and look about us ... O, Wenny, do pull up your necktie."
"Now, Fanshaw, you shan't heckle Wenny," said Nan laughing.
The orchestra had struck up Funiculi, Funicula with great vigor. Wenny was looking at the girl who played the violin. Something in the tilt of the chin was painfully like Nan, only all the features were heavier, the lips coarser and less intense; many men had kissed them perhaps. To kiss Nan's lips. No, I mustn't think of all that. I will drive it out of me, down into me. Tonight it's calm; cold I must be, to weigh everything. In spite of him the tune filled his mind with streets full of carnival, scampering, heavybreasted women pelting him with flowers.
"The ladies' three-piece band is doing itself proud tonight," he shouted boisterously.
Like this always, these dreams. I must put an end to them. It's on account of these dream women I've not made Nan love me; everything has slipped by. What's the good of dreams? It's hard actuality I want, will have.