24th January.
[CHAPTER XLII]
PAGANI'S (GREAT PORTLAND STREET)
"If you will dine with me on Sunday night I will give you dinner in the most interesting private dining-room that any restaurant in London can show," I said to little Mrs. Tota.
"She'll do nothing of the sort," said George, her husband, from behind his paper.
"George!" said little Mrs. Tota, and there was a mixture of astonishment, query, and reproof in the way she spoke her husband's name.
George laid down his newspaper. "Since you took her to dine in that private room at Kettner's nothing has been good enough for her. She would like a maître d'hôtel and a head waiter dancing round her at every meal, and she can't go out of the front door without looking round to see if there is a manager there to bow her out."
"You are perfectly horrid, George," said little Mrs. Tota with some asperity. "You won't take me out yourself, and when other people are kind enough to offer to do so you are as cross and sarcastic as you can be."