He put his hand across the table, on one of hers. "Jeannette," he whispered, "I promise. Why do you care? It is not possible that you care because, because—Jeannette, will you promise me something, too?"
They have excellent waiters at the Mayfair. They can be absolutely blind at times. This was such a time. The particular waiter who was serving Vane's table, took a sudden, rapt interest in the procession on the avenue.
Jeanette crumbled a macaroon with her free hand.
"You have my hand," she pouted.
"I need it," he said. "It is a very pretty hand. And very strong. I think it must have lifted all my ills from me to-day. I feel nothing but kindness toward the whole world. I could kiss—the whole world."
"Oh," said Jeannette, pulling her hand away a little, "you monster! You are worse than Nero."
"Do you think my kisses would be so awful, then? Or is it simply the piggishness of me that makes you call me a monster. That's not the right way to look at it. Think of all the dreadful people there are in the world; think how philanthropic you must make me feel if I want to kiss even those."
"Ah, but the world is full of beautiful women."
"I do not believe it," he vowed. "I do not think God had any beauty left after he fashioned—you."
He was not ashamed, not one iota of the grossness of that fable. He really felt so. Indeed, all his life he never felt otherwise than that toward Jeannette. And she took the shocking compliment quite serenely.