I shall never know for certain whether or not our future was entirely
shaped by Monny's resolve to breakfast on the terrace of Shepheard's
Hotel next morning.

A great many remarkable things have happened on that historic site.
Napoleon made the place his headquarters. General Kleber was murdered
in the garden. Half the most important people in the world have had tea
on the terrace: but, according to a German waiter, there was one deed
yet undone. Nobody had ever ordered breakfast out of doors.

Of course, Monny got what she wanted. Not by storming, not by putting
on power-of-wealth airs, but simply by turning bright pink and looking
large-eyed. At once that waiter rushed off, and fetched other waiters;
and almost before the invited guests knew what to expect, two tables
had been fitted together, covered with white, adorned with fresh roses,
and set forth with cups and saucers. I was the one man invited, and I
felt like an actor called to play a new part in an old scene, a scene
vaguely, excitingly familiar. Could I possibly be remembering it, I
asked myself, or was my impression but the result of a life-long
debauch of Egyptian photographs? Anyhow, there was the impression, with
a thrill in it; and I felt that I ought to be handsomer, more romantic,
altogether more vivid, if I were to live up to the moving picture. It
seemed as if nothing would be too extraordinary to do, if I wanted to
match my surroundings. I thought, even if I burst into a passionate
Arab love-song and proposed to Monny across the table, it would be
quite the right note. But somehow I didn't feel inclined to propose. It
was enough to admire her over the rim of a coffee cup. In her white
tussore (I heard Biddy call it tussore) and drooping, garden-type of