"Why--would it mean so much to you?" he asked, in a tone half of pity, half of tenderness. "I don't suppose they'd find room for me." "It might be managed; oh, I'm sure it might be managed!" she whispered. "And you could work there--and I--we could see you often--every day." He had no understanding of her real meaning; no knowledge of the desperate loneliness that spoke innocently in her voice and in her eyes; shallow himself, he was only vaguely flattered at her desire to see him, at her happiness in meeting him again. After all, this was something of a new sensation; this snatching up of someone out of the darkness in which she had lain hidden; this showing to her all the wonders of a world of which he had grown a little tired. He promised himself some entertainment out of it; felt that under all the circumstances he was doing rather a good and a kindly thing. "Well, even if I don't find a room there, we must manage to see a lot of each other, Moira," he said. "You must be heartily sick of spending all your time with old Patience; I should think you must yawn your heads off every night. Or do you go out at all, as she seemed to suggest?" "We do not go out; I've only been out once--to enjoy myself, I mean--and that was to the opera. That was wonderful!" "Oh, there are better things than the opera, my dear," he said, with a laugh. "The opera's dull and stupid compared to other things you shall see. But here we are at my restaurant; and here you shall taste the first of your new joys. Wait till he pulls the glass up." It was extraordinary how well Charlie seemed to be known. A smiling man, with a stiff hand to the peak of his cap, held open the door for them; another smiling man, rotund of body, was discovered bowing within the doors, and preceded them to a table in a corner; hoped that the gentleman was well, and issued sharp orders in a foreign tongue to the flying waiters. Charlie took it all as a mere matter of course; had a word or two to say about the menu, and the changing of a particular dish; and then sank down at the other side of the table. Truly a new experience to look into the dark eyes of this girl, and to see how she sat in this very ordinary restaurant with her lips parted, looking about her, and enjoying every moment of the time, even while she waited for dinner. And she was such a striking looking girl, too, he thought critically, with that black hair and those dark eyes set in her white face. No one need quarrel with him for bringing out such a girl as this; there was something attractive, in a fashion, about her very shabbiness; it gave an air to her.