Dinner started, for the dweller in cities banally enough, with hors-d'œuvres. To Norah's reluctant rusticity, the tinned caviare shone with an unforgotten aura of shaded restaurant lamps, the bottled anchovies swam in a remembered sea of laughter and wit, the dried olives echoed with the lost lilt of ragtime orchestras.
There was no bathos in the courses that followed.
'Who cooks for you?' she asked. 'The angel Gabriel?'
'Is it hard to get cooks up here?' he replied innocently.
'Yesterday I found Alabedi rolling a rissole into shape on his naked chest,' she said. 'The one before used to wash his feet in the big saucepan.'
'The chef at the Ritz may have the same weaknesses,' put in Dick sympathetically.
'Yes, but he can at least cook. My criminals haven't an idea above "shtoo!"'
After dinner they sat in a shelter, fragrant with the fresh leaves and blossoms of the boughs that formed it.
'What about a tune?' asked Dick, as his personal boy, resplendent in white kanju and scarlet sash, presented a book of gramophone records.
'You choose,' she said, 'it's so long, since...'