Oh! the look he gave me, as if I had annexed the table under false
pretences!

Suddenly the chorus of an American song ran with mocking echoes through
my brain. I had heard Pamela sing it at the Convent:

The waiter roared it through the hall:
"We don't give bread with _one_ fish-ball!
We-don't-_give_-bread with one fish-_ba-a-ll_!"

I half expected some such crushing protest, and it was only when the
weary duke had turned his back, presumably to execute my order, that I
sank into my chair with a sigh of relief after strain.

Just at that moment I met the eye of the lady of the lift, and when the
waiter reappeared with a small cup, on a charger large enough to have
upheld the head of John the Baptist, she looked again. In five minutes I
had finished the _consommé_, and it became painful to linger. Rising, I
made for the door, which seemed a mile away, and I did not lift my head
in passing the table where the lady sat behind her roses. I heard a
rustling as I went by, however, a crisp rustling like flower-leaves
whispering in a breeze, or a woman's silk ruffles stroking each other,
which followed me out into the hall.

Then the pleasant voice I had heard near the lift spoke behind me:

"Won't you have your coffee with me in the garden?"

I could hardly believe at first that it was for me the invitation was
intended, but turning with a little start, I saw it repeated in a pair