My host may overlook the fact that I am using the salad fork for fish; not so his English butler.
There is an awkward pause. The bon mot I was about to utter apropos of an opera I had never heard has left my mind entirely. I can't think of anything to say. Finally, in desperation, I remark idiotically to the dowager at my left, "I love asparagus; don't you?"
The next time he passes a dish, I lose my nerve. I lift my hand to help myself, and then, as I catch his eye, draw back, shaking my head. No, I won't take any chances.
After that I keep to a strict diet, eating only the things that appear on my plate when it is put down in front of me. If the plate arrives naked and empty, naked and empty it remains, even though the course consist of my favorite delicacy. I suffer the pangs of Tantalus.
Alligator-pear salad—more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold—is offered to me. I covet it. Everything gastronomic in my nature craves it, but cowardly fear restrains me (it looks slippery), and I refuse it. I could almost weep.
As the dinner proceeds and my modified hunger-strike continues, I begin to regain confidence. I feel that my abstemiousness, implying as it does a jaded palate and an aristocratic indigestion, is highly fashionable. I fancy that in refusing ambrosia I am showing a godlike superiority.
I expand with self-assurance. Just watch me startle these plutocrats with my scorn of their costly food. I'll make myself the lion of the evening.
"May I help you to shortcake, sir?" asks a low, ironically respectful voice.