He selected one of the lesser dining rooms where the formality of evening clothes was still the rule, but here and there a couple like themselves, in street attire. It was her first New York meal that was not read off a badly thumbed menu and eaten off thick-lipped china. A stringed orchestra played the Duo of Parsifal and Kundry, which was enough to set the blood rocking in her veins and some of its bombastic maternal passion to dye her face. He ordered a man's dinner: Clear soup with croutons. Long oysters on the half shell. A thick steak with potatoes deliciously concocted beneath a crust of cheese. Light wine. Ices in long glasses as slender as the neck of a crane. Turkish coffee brewed at the table over alcohol. She sighed out finally, warm with well-being: "I didn't realize how deadly tired I was of just--grub. You see, it's the first time I've dined at a first-class place since I'm in New York." "You don't mean that." She nodded, smiling. "I think I'm as surprised as you are. It's just one of the things that never occurred to me." He regarded her for a long moment and without smile. "You queer, queer girl." "If anyone tells me that again, I'll begin to believe it is my inevitable epitaph." "No epitaph is inevitable. It is what you write it." She leaned her chin into the cup of her palm. "Do you think that?" "Yes, and therefore yours should embody courage and dauntless idealism and love of truth." She looked off through the atmosphere that was talcy with soft odors and the warm perfume of bare shoulders. "Love of truth," she said, her eyes lit, "would be enough." "Love of you, would be an epitaph to my liking." She was afraid he could see the little beating at her throat and wanted to be facetious. Poor Lilly, to whom persiflage came none too readily. "Now, you're making sport of me." "Probably it is a case of laugh that I may not weep." "Even tears can be idle." "Or idolizing." "I suppose I am to surmise over the quality of yours?" "Well, you have had me guessing for three years. Mrs. Penny. Lilly! I can't say the other, it--won't s-say itself." She asked her question with a cessation of her entire being, as if her heart had missed a beat. "Hasn't--your--brother--told--you--anything?" "Oh yes. I know how you threw over the professional end of it for what you decided you could do better. I thought that pretty plucky; so many of us mistake inflated judgment for genius and stubbornness for perseverance, when that same perseverance applied to the job within one's capacity may lead to fine fulfillment." "It's good to hear you say that." "But that is about all I do know--Lilly--except, of course, that there is a youngster and somewhere in the background a husband whom I would like to meet out some dark night when I happen to be wearing my favorite pair of brass knuckles." Something nameless and shapeless had lifted; there was a gavotte to her heartbeat. "My husband was--is a good man."