“Well, m’sieu” (pulling my chair out, uneasily), “it is the season of the Americans, and—but pardon, m’sieu!”
“Don’t mind me,” I said, pouncing on the carte du jour of the Café aux Oranges. “In Paris I am equally content as you to forget it—that I am American. Alors, Marcel!—it will be hors d’œuvres variés, and then an omelette fines herbes, and then, I think, an assiette anglaise with a bit of salad, eh? and a Camembert, to finish.”
Marcel regarded me solemnly—consideringly—from over the wide block rims of his glasses. “But yes, m’sieu,” he said at last, grudgingly, “I suppose that it can go, as a breakfast. And monsieur drinks——?”
“Beer,” I was suddenly occupied with an extraordinarily pretty girl in the orangier opposite, “demibrune, Marcel.”
“Pardon, m’sieu, demiblonde—er—I—a thousand pardons, m’sieu!” Confused, the old fellow brought his eyes back from the same direction; made a violent effort to blush, and hurried off, murmuring, “demibrune, m’sieu, it is understood!”
I looked again at the girl. Even for the Café aux Oranges, where in spring, like this, there are as many pretty girls as blossoms on the chestnut trees above the little tables,—she was extraordinarily pretty. And she was American. One knew that by the upholstered shoulders of the young man and the shopping-bag of the lady, who were with her. The lady was frowning over the menu.
“I will not come here again!” she was heard to say, in a voice with as many corners as her shopping bag. “The second time this week—no roast beef! I’ll not come again. It’s a cheap place.”
“But, mamma” (by straining one’s ears, one could just get the low response of the pretty girl) “it’s a very nice place, really! And don’t you know it is one of the very few old cafés of the Quarter—the old French cafés—Roger told us?”
“Roger!” exploded the lady (there was no difficulty in hearing her). “If Roger knew less about cafés, it would be a great deal better for——”
Marcel returned with the hors d’œuvres. But not before I had seen a thin smile overtake the features of the heavy-shouldered young man.