all sufficient reasons for his unpopularity.

As the afternoon wore on little airs began to play in the tree-tops; the
street watering carts had been assiduous, and before the terrace water
had been sprinkled by the piccolos so effectively that at five o'clock,
when the jaded stock-brokers, journalists, and business men began to
flock in, each for his apéritif, the café was comparatively cool.

A few women's frocks relieved the picture with discreet or joyous shades
of white and pink. Ambroise was diligent and served his regular
customers, the men who grumbled if any one occupied their favourite
corners. Absinthe nicely iced, dominoes, the evening papers--these he
brought as he welcomed familiar faces. But his thoughts were not his
own, and his pose when not in service was listless, even bored. Would
_she_ return that evening with the same crowd--was the idea that had
taken possession of his brain. He was very timid in the presence of
women, and it diverted the waiters to see him blush when he waited upon
the gorgeous birds that thronged the aviary at night, making its walls
echo with their chattering, quarrels, laughter. This provincial, modest,
sensitive, the only child of old-fashioned parents, was stupefied and
shocked in the presence of the over-decorated and under-dressed
creatures, daubed like idols, who began to flock in the café, with or
without escorts, after eleven o'clock every night in the year. He knew
them all by name. He knew their histories. He could detect at a glance
whether they were unhappy or merely depressed by the rain, whether they
drank champagne from happiness or desperation. Notwithstanding his
dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled
soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and
feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were
gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty. He noted