The latter place was reserved for the Café, where marble tables were closely packed on a red-tiled and sanded floor; and it boasted its own separate entrance, carefully remote from the other. It gave a Bohemian atmosphere to the newly opened Restaurant. For the diners in the room beyond could watch the ever-changing scene—undisturbed by smoke or chatter—like a slice of French life cut bodily from the gay capital over seas.
The proprietor had been head-waiter in a fashionable London hôtel; a shrewd Swiss—known as "Monsieur Auguste"—he had learned the secret underlying the modern demand for catering.
He realized that the Englishman will readily pay an exorbitant price for rich food badly cooked in a first-class Restaurant; impervious to a hurried service, to overcrowding and noise, provided that the place held a fixed reputation for "smartness."
But he knew, besides, that success waited at the other end of the long scale: that it tickled the average British mind to strike a bargain over dinner: to justify the national shrewdness and play the pauper (without discomfort)—with a hint, too, of mild Bohemia to salt its sense of respectability. The fact that he gave them well-cooked whiting instead of a tepid "Sole Normande"; "pot-au-feu" which was mainly stock, in place of a glue-like "Consommé" his clients manfully ignored. Conscious of the economy of dining "Au Bon Bourgeois," their virtue was rewarded, doubtless, by the after ease of their digestion.
No noisy band rent the air. The service was clean and prompt under the all-pervading eye of the busy proprietor. And for those who found no special interest in the Café life the place offered as a perpetual mise-en-scène, two rooms on the first floor were provided, where the tables ranged along the walls were screened by match-wood partitions, offering a sanctuary for flirtation and isolation for the "Select."
McTaggart had reserved a table in the coveted angle of the room where no waiter could jar his chair by darting feverishly behind it. It allowed his guest a full view through the screen of plate-glass and, as Fantine took her place, under the cool, admiring eye of "Monsieur Auguste," in attendance, she gave a quick exclamation of mingled pleasure and surprise.
"Charming—quite Continental..."
A wistful note crept into her face. Absorbed by this travesty of the Boulevards, she peeled off her long suede gloves and smoothed her hair with an absent gesture.
Monsieur Auguste, in spotless white—linen coat and long apron—relieved by a huge black cravatte fastened with the famous pin (the present of a Grand Duke), glanced at McTaggart with the smile of a serene and confident host.
"Look at those men playing dominoes! and the long-haired creature with the cape—He's drinking absinthe ... oh! how nice...!" Fantine's eyes shone with golden lights.