"A day of disasters," observed Tony. "I felt it when I got up this morning."
The door opened, and a neatly dressed parlour-maid announced dinner.
Musette laid down her novel and, rising from her chair, accepted his arm.
"We'll hope, at all events," she said, "that the food will be an exception."
They crossed the hall to the dining-room, where a small round table, bright with silver and glasses, stood out attractively against the black oak panelling of the walls. The only light came from four red-shaded candles in the centre.
Musette's "impromptu feast" turned out to be a dainty little dinner which would have won the approval of Colonel Newnham Davis. Some excellent soup was followed by grilled sole, sweetbreads, and a partridge, the whole concluding with an alluring symphony on toast in which eggs and old Madeira supplied the leading motif. Assisted by a bottle of Lafitte, and a couple of glasses of "Bristol cream," Tony's immediate troubles faded luxuriously from his memory. He possessed to a supreme degree that enviable gift of living in the present, and as he chatted away cheerfully to Musette, the thought that on the morrow he would be facing an unsympathetic world without a penny in his pocket never once intruded its unpleasant image.
It was only in the small room afterwards, when he was sitting over the fire smoking a cigar and watching the light flickering softly on Musette's white arms, that the sudden realization of his position gripped him. With a horrible abruptness it occurred to him that this was probably the last time he would see her. Up till that moment he had never thought about his relations with Musette. Without making love to her he had drifted into a kind of charming intimacy, quite different from anything he had previously known in a fairly extensive experience. Now the thought that he was going to lose her appeared to him suddenly in all its naked simplicity. He stared into the fire, trying to grasp the unpleasant revelation.
Musette leaned forward, looking up at him.
"What's the matter, Tony?" she asked.
Her hand was on the arm of the chair, and Tony, almost unconsciously, laid his own on it. Her soft and cool clasp answered him with a little affectionate pressure.