Part 14 (1/2)

And Katharine, who had no desire for a larger appet.i.te than she already possessed, ate the _hors d'oeuvre_ with a relish, and longed for more, and wondered if she should ever attain to the extreme culture of her companion, who was playing delicately with the sardine on his plate.

”Don't you ever feel hungry?” she asked him. ”It seems to add to your isolation that you have none of the ordinary frailties of the flesh. I really believe it would quite destroy my illusion of you, if I ever caught you enjoying a penny bun!”

”You may preserve the illusion, if you like, and remember that I am not a woman. It is only women who-- Well, what is it now, child?”

”Do explain this,” she begged him, with a comical expression of dismay. ”Why is it red?”

”I should say because, fundamentally, it is red mullet. It would never occur to me to inquire more deeply into it; but the rest is probably accounted for by the carte, if you understand French. Don't you think you had better approach it, fasting and with faith?”

”Go on about your appet.i.te, please; it is so awfully entertaining,”

resumed Katharine. ”I believe, if you found yourself really hungry one day, force of habit would still make you eat your lunch as though you didn't want it a bit. Now, wouldn't it?”

”My dear Miss Katharine, you have yet to learn that hunger does not give you a desire for more food, but merely imparts an element of pleasure to it. Go on with your fish, or else the entree will catch you up.”

”I am glad,” said Katharine, in the interval between the courses, ”that I'm not a superior person like you. It must be so lonely, isn't it?”

”What wine will you drink? White or red?” asked Paul severely.

”Living with you,” continued Katharine, leaning back and looking mischievously at what was visible of him over the wine list, ”must be exactly like living with Providence.”

”Number five,” said Paul to the waiter, laying down the wine list.

Then he looked at her, and shook his head reprovingly.

”You see you don't live with me, do you?” he said drily.

”No,” retorted Katharine hastily. ”I live with sixty-three working gentlewomen, and that is a very different matter.”

”Very,” he a.s.sented, looking so searchingly at her that she found herself beginning to blush. The arrival of the wine made a diversion.

”Oh,” said Katharine, ”I am quite sure I can't drink any champagne.”

”If you had not been so occupied in firing off epigrams, you might have had some choice in the matter. As it is, you have got to do as you are told.”

He filled her gla.s.s, and she felt that it was very pleasant to do as she was told by him; and her eyes glistened as they met his over the br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses.

”I am so happy to-day,” she felt obliged to tell him.

”That's right. Because it is the first day of the holidays?”

”Because you are so nice to me, I think,” she replied softly; and then was afraid lest she had said too much. But he nodded, and seemed to understand; and she dropped her eyes suddenly and began crumbling her bread.

”What makes you so nice to me, I wonder,” she continued in the same tone. This time he became matter-of-fact.

”The natural order of the universe, I suppose. Man was created to look after woman, and woman to look after man; don't you think so?”

She understood him well enough, by now, to know when to take her tone from him.

”At all events, it saves Providence a lot of trouble,” she said; and they laughed together.

Their lunch was a success; and Paul smiled at her woe-begone face when the black coffee had been brought, and she was beginning slowly to remember that there was still such a place as number ten, Queen's Crescent, and that it actually existed in the same metropolis as the one that contained this superb restaurant.