“Well, then, I’ll tell you the real reason,” I rejoined. “Two winters ago I played snowball with a little child I love. She managed to hit me here on my temple, and it hasn’t melted yet.”
“Just one more reason!”
“Well, the true reason is,” I said, really solemnly this time, “that I am passing out of the sunlight into the starlight.... Will you come with me?”
“I will,” said the Sphinx, after a pause, taking my hand.
II
THE MYSTICISM OF GASTRONOMY
“EVEN our digestion is governed by angels!” said William Blake—one of those picturesque phrases with which he was wont to flash on us the mystery that abides eternally just under the surface of the familiar. I have often recalled the phrase as I sat at dinner with the Sphinx; and not, of course, in any trivial, punning spirit, but seriously in regard to that sensitive mood of harmony, and of keen exhilarating intimacy, which seems to come over us when we thus sit at dinner together as it never comes at any other time.
“Why is it,” I asked her recently, after our old friendly waiter had welcomed us with the smile that we really believe he keeps just for us, and had seen us comfortably settled in our own quiet corner, “why is it that I always feel happier with you at dinner than at any other time?”
“You have the dinner as well,” answered the Sphinx, laughing, “on other occasions you have only—me.”
“Admitting the profundity of your explanation,” I rejoined, “I think there must be a still deeper one—but what it is I cannot say. For instance, we are happy together when we take a walk through the woods, or sit through the afternoon in the old garden, or read a book together. How happy we have been on the sea together, with no one but we two under the blue sky. Yet I have never felt so near to you, never so at harmony with you, as when we have sat at this table and looked into each other’s eyes over our wineglasses. Why is it?”
“Just what I say! Very evidently, by your own showing—it is dinner that makes the difference. Not in the woods you say, not in the garden, not with books, not on the sea—not anywhere but at dinner. Ergo, the only possible explanation is—dinner.”