“No, if you take it that way,” she said, “we’ll go and get our breakfast, and say no more about it.” She found the fortitude to turn away from the window as she spoke. “If _I_ take it that way!” The perverseness of this trivial tangle annoyed him. “Why, I consented to stop outside, didn’t I? What more is demanded? Do you want me to pass a vote of confidence, or shall I whistle during the performance, so that you may know I am cheerful, or what? Suppose I told you that I had been a salesman in a boot-shop myself, and had measured literally thousands of pretty little feet--would that reassure you? I might come in, then, mightn’t I?” “No--you never were _that_--you are a gentleman.” She stole a perplexed glance up at him, and sighed. “I should dearly love the boots--but you won’t understand. I don’t know how to make you.” Looking into his face, and catching there a reflection of her own dubiety, she burst suddenly into laughter. “You are a gentleman, but you are a goose, too. My stockings are too mournful a patchwork of holes and darning to invite inspection--if you will have it.” “Poor child!” He breathed relief, as if a profoundly menacing misunderstanding had been cleared up. “Here, take this and run across to that fat Jewess in the doorway there. She will fit you out.” Presently she returned, with beaming eyes, and an air of shyness linked with complacent self-approbation which he found delightful. “Oh, I should simply insist on your coming in _now_,” she cried gaily, at the door of the boot-shop, in answer to his mock look of deferential inquiry. CHAPTER II There surely was never such another breakfast in the world! She spoke with frank sincerity. Upon afterthought she added: “I don’t believe any woman could order a meal like that. You men always know so much about eating.” Mosscrop leant back in his chair, crossed his knees, and took a cigar from his pocket. His mind ran in pleasurable retrospect over the dishes--a fragrant omelette with mushrooms, a sole _Marguerite_, a delicate little steak that had been steeped in oil over night, a pulpy Italian cheese which he never got elsewhere than here. The tall-shouldered, urnshaped green bottle on the table still held a little Capri, and he poured it into her glass. “Yes,” he assented, “I find myself paying more attention to food as I get older. It is the badge of advancing years. It _is_ a good little restaurant, isn’t it? I come here a great deal.” “And that is how you are able to order such wonderful breakfasts for hungry young ladies. It comes of practice. Do they all enjoy it as much as I have?”