“Surely, we’ll have the tenth, by all means.” Phil tapped the waiter on the back, and motioned in the direction of the empty table.
“I thought perhaps you’d rather not,” he whispered to Nancy, as they slipped into the old, familiar places. Evidently Phil had a memory for numbers, too. So often it is only the woman who can count ten.
“Now,” began Phil, as soon as the dinner had been ordered and other preliminaries attended to, “tell me how on earth you and I happen to be here together? Did you drop straight from the clouds? Or aren’t you here at all? Are you just a bit from a wildly improbable dream?”
“No,” said Nancy, glibly, her equilibrium restored; “I’m spending the night with Lilla Browning, and it suddenly occurred to me that it would be fun for us to have dinner together.” She paused a moment. “Once more,” she added, watching Phil’s face closely. “And isn’t it just like that other time—the last time we were here together?” Phil looked at her curiously. “The people, and the soft lights, and the funny little musicians, and my meeting you——”
“Oh-h!” said Phil, quietly.
“And—-and everything,” finished Nancy, lamely.
“Don’t you remember?” she went on. “The paper had sent you off on some pesky assignment, and you were just a wee bit late. And we had a sort of a tiff about it until I happened to look up at the picture over the table, and ‘The Girl with the Laughing Eyes’ was looking straight down at us? And then, somehow, I had to laugh, too, and we made up. Don’t you remember?”
Phil nodded. Did he not remember everything? Had he not been remembering ever since? That was the pity of it all!
“We were pretty happy that night, weren’t we, Phil?”
“Don’t, Nance.” Phil’s bright eyes had a curious, unusual brightness at that moment.