'What fun. We shall probably forget to go. But if we don't, we shall have to eat so much that we shan't need any more for a week. How economical! Lunch in England—do you remember, Tommy?'
Tommy was thinking.
'Betty, we don't dress well enough. I want a new hat; so do you. Venables is better dressed than we are. We must be tidy, and cut a dash at lunch. It's a mistake not to be well dressed; people are so prejudiced. I shall wear a collar to-morrow—a quite clean one, like Venables. And we won't have any supper to-night, because we shall have to eat too much at lunch. And I suppose Mrs. Venables will talk about father's books, as she's so interested; so let's read them.'
'Perhaps,' said Betty, 'we'd better read her own works too; only I don't feel sure they'd be quite nice, so I think we'll wait till we're older—thirty-two and thirty-three. We can tell her if she asks that we read so little that we have to be very careful about what we read. It would be so disappointing to read a book we didn't like; she'll understand that.'
CHAPTER III
OF MENTAL STANDPOINTS
'E parea posta lor diversa legge.'—Dante.
The Crevequers, as they had anticipated, did eat too much at lunch—a good deal too much. They cast, occasionally, wondering and interested glances round the dining-room, and took in the fact that every one at all the little tables was also eating too much. It was borne upon them that this exorbitance, a strange incident in their own lives, was to these others a daily occurrence. Every day at one o'clock the dining-room at Parker's, the dining-rooms at all the hotels of its genus, were filled with Anglo-Saxons and a few others, all sitting round little tables, and all eating too much. Then again at dinner-time.... The impressiveness of the thought widened their eyes, filling them with an awestruck solemnity. To eat too much, a good deal too much, twice—nay, thrice—a day (for visions of the Anglo-Saxon breakfast haunted them: one had honey, one ordered omelette) during a period of weeks and months—it required thinking over quietly afterwards. At present, face to face with the amazing succession of the courses, the contemplation of all it meant made one a little dizzy. The Crevequers took all the courses; they would not have missed one; they intended to see this thing through. As they ate they talked stammeringly. Mrs. Venables was struck by the melancholy of their pondering eyes. Her interest—she had an immense fund of it—was gathering itself together to pour itself unstintedly forth on Maddan Crevequer's children. Her son and her daughter and her niece watched the gathering; it was a familiar process to them. The son watched it with languid amusement; the daughter with stolid unconcern (she was a bored child of eighteen); the niece with eyes inscrutably remote. The Crevequers were copy; they came to be studied, to be drawn out; they responded to the process with their usual affability. They answered questions as to their way of life, their friends, the customs of the Neapolitan poor, their religion. Mrs. Venables, as she said, found the Roman Catholic standpoint quite immensely interesting. The Crevequers groped uncomprehendingly after the reason of such interest, and gave it up. They were, however, quite ready to answer the questions put to them; it seemed a harmless craze enough. Mrs. Venables had been to Mass the day before, and had, she affirmed, been much struck by the impressive contrast of the ordered stateliness of the service and the spontaneous gaiety of the people as they trooped out into the piazza afterwards. It had occurred to her, watching the devout worshippers, that Catholicism was in some of its aspects a strange medium for the spiritual interpretation of the blithe Italian genius. What did Mr. Crevequer think?