“It would be missing half the enjoyment to eat such a delicacy without some one to share it,” she said.
Blake looked away without answer. But she could see that his face was beginning to clear. Greatly encouraged, she chatted away as though they were seated at her father’s dinner-table, and he was an elderly friend from the business world whom it was her duty to entertain.
For a while Blake betrayed little interest, confining himself to monosyllables except when he commented on the care with which she had cooked the various dishes. When she least expected, he looked up at her, his lips parted in a broad smile. She stopped short, for she had been describing her first social triumphs, and his untimely levity embarrassed her.
“Don’t get mad, Miss Jenny,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “You don’t know how funny it seems to sit here and listen to you talking about those things. It’s like serving up ice cream and onions in the same dish.”
“Beats a burlesque all hollow–Mrs. Sint-Regis-Waldoff’s chop-sooey tea and young Mrs. Vandam-Jones’s auto-cotillon–with us sitting here like troglodytes, chewing snake-poisoned antelope, and you in that Kundry dress–”
“Do you–I was not aware that you knew about music.”
“Don’t know a note. But give me a chance to hear good music, and I’m there, if I have to stand in the peanut gallery.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! I’m very, very fond of music! Have you been to Bayreuth?”
“Where’s that?”