Near them a conceited young man with a hard voice and small eyes was talking impressively to an untidy-looking girl in green with a mauve chiffon scarf. While he talked, the girl smoked his cigarettes, and interjected remarks of superior quality. Sally heard her say "Ah," in sign of agreement, and once "Oh, yes, of course Flaubert...." "What's Flaubert?" she asked Gaga. He appeared startled. "Er ... I don't know," he answered. "What put it into your head?" "That girl said it. Listen." They listened. The young man was arguing about something. He was arguing about something of which neither Sally nor Gaga could discover the purport. Sally said: "They're both woolly. Woolly-wits, they are. Both got maggots. What's 'art,' anyway? Pitchers? And all that about values?" Gaga was buried. He had a sudden inspiration. "Don't listen to them," he said. "It's something they ... they understand." "I bet they don't," remarked Sally. "You don't talk about things you understand." "Well, let's talk about what _we_ don't understand...." He was beseeching in his tone, and his soft eyes glowed. The waitress approached, bearing two large plates piled high with spaghetti. "Golly!" ejaculated Sally. "Howjer eat it? Fingers?" They had little time to talk while they were engaged with the capers of this surprising food; but when both were tired of playing with the spaghetti they turned their attention to the straw-covered bottle of Chianti which had been brought. Sally made a wry mouth at her first venture. She had yet to learn that the wine was heavier than any she had yet drunk. She strained her ears to catch more of what the fascinatingly conceited young man was saying about his inexhaustible topic. Good-looking boy, if he cut his hair and shaved his moustache off. She saw Gaga look anxiously and wonderingly across at her, with a kind of hunger; and she was shaken by a mischievous notion. She had never done such a thing before, but she put her foot forward so that it touched one of his, and smiled right into Gaga's chocolate eyes. The slow red crept up under his skin, and they had no need to talk. Sally was laughing to herself, and eating some beautifully cooked veal, and she knew that Gaga was glowing with contentment. She at last observed the two talkers slouch out of the restaurant, the man in very baggy-kneed trousers and a loose coat, and the girl in a dress of home make. A quick wrinkle showed in Sally's grimacing nose as she brought her professional eye to bear; and then the two talkers were gone and were forgotten. Sally and Gaga were quite alone at their end of the room, in a corner, favorably remote for intimate conversation from the remaining diners. "Funny us not knowing what they were talking about," mused Sally. "You don't, you know. It's very hard to know what anybody talks about. To understand it, I mean. Hard to know anybody, too." "I shouldn't have thought I was hard to know," ventured Gaga.