"If I skip afternoon tea, and dinner, and supper, and petit déjeuner, and have two breakfasts running," he exclaimed brightly, "I shall begin fair again." And he laughed, not loud, but murmuringly, for the first time.
They went round the Casino to the front of the Hôtel de Paris, their natural parting place. But there, on the steps, with legs apart, stood the wretch with the evil eyes. He looked at her from afar, banteringly. Defiance rose in Zora's soul. She would again show him that she was not a lone and helpless woman at the mercy of the casual depredator.
"I'm taking you in to lunch with me, Mr. Dix. You can't refuse," she said; and without waiting for a reply she sailed majestically past the wretch, followed meekly by Septimus, as if she owned him body and soul.
As usual, many eyes were turned on her as she entered the restaurant—a radiant figure in white, with black hat and black chiffon boa, and a deep red rose in her bosom. The maître d'hôtel, in the pride of reflected glory, conducted her to a table near the window. Septimus trailed inconclusively behind. When he seated himself he stared at her silently in a mute surmise as the gentlemen in the poem did at the peak in Darien. It was even a wilder adventure than the memorable drive. That was but a caprice of the goddess; this was a sign of her friendship. The newness of their intimacy smote him dumb. He passed his hand through his Struwel Peter hair and wondered. Was it real? There sat the goddess, separated from him by the strip of damask, her gold-flecked eyes smiling frankly and trustfully into his, pulling off her gloves and disclosing, in almost disconcerting intimacy, her warm wrists and hands. Was he dreaming, as he sometimes did, in broad daylight, of a queer heaven in which he was strong like other men and felt the flutter of wings upon his cheek? Something soft was in his hand. Mechanically he began to stuff it up his sleeve. It was his napkin. Zora's laugh brought him to earth—to happy earth.
It is a pleasant thing to linger tête-à-tête over lunch on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris. Outside is the shade of the square, the blazing sunshine beyond the shadow; the fountain and the palms and the doves; the white gaiety of pleasure houses; the blue-gray mountains cut sharp against the violet sky. Inside, a symphony of cool tones: the pearl of summer dresses; the snow, crystal, and silver of the tables; the tender green of lettuce, the yellows of fruit, the soft pink of salmon; here and there a bold note of color—the flowers in a woman's hat, the purples and topazes of wine. Nearer still to the sense is the charm of privacy. The one human being for you in the room is your companion. The space round your chairs is a magic circle, cutting you off from the others, who are mere decorations, beautiful or grotesque. Between you are substances which it were gross to call food: dainty mysteries of coolness and sudden flavors; a fish salad in which the essences of sea and land are blended in cold, celestial harmony; innermost kernels of the lamb of the salted meadows where must grow the Asphodel on which it fed, in amorous union with what men call a sauce, but really oil and cream and herbs stirred by a god in a dream; peaches in purple ichor chastely clad in snow, melting on the palate as the voice of the divine singer after whom they are named melts in the soul.
It is a pleasant thing—hedonistic? yes; but why live on lentils when lotus is to your hand? and, really, at Monte Carlo lentils are quite as expensive—it is a pleasant thing, even for the food-worn wanderer of many restaurants, to lunch tête-à-tête at the Hôtel de Paris; but for the young and fresh-hearted to whom it is new, it is enchantment.
"I've often looked at people eating like this and I've often wondered how it felt," said Septimus.
"But you must have lunched hundreds of times in such places."
"Yes—but by myself. I've never had a—" he paused. "A what?"
"A—a gracious lady," he said, reddening, "to sit opposite me."