"You will easily pick it up as we go along," she replied. "Is this Prince's? I wonder if I shall succeed in behaving as though I had lunched here every day of my life!" CHAPTER XIV AN AFTERNOON'S SHOPPING Deane found a singular interest, an interest which amounted almost to fascination, in watching the demeanor and general deportment of his companion. Her adaptability was little short of marvellous. She smiled at the right moment at the obsequious _maître d'hôtel_, and exhibited just the proper amount of interest in the luncheon which Deane ordered. The restaurant was somewhat crowded, but there was no one who attracted more notice than Deane and the girl who sat opposite him,--slim, and elegantly dressed,--looking around her with a certain partly veiled interest, which was all the time in piquant contrast to the languor of her eyes and manner. She was by no means a silent companion, although her conversation consisted for the most part of questions. She had an unerring gift for discovering the most noteworthy of the little crowd by whom they were surrounded, and she was continually asking questions about them, with a persistence which clearly indicated an interest scarcely suggested by her general deportment. "I wonder," Deane said, toward the end of their meal, "whether social preëminence is amongst your carefully veiled ambitions." "I am not at all sure," she answered. "Of course, one develops according to circumstances. In the office of Messrs. Rubicon & Moore I naturally cared nothing for the world which I could only read about in the columns of _Modern Society_. As one comes into touch with things, one appreciates. It is always interesting to know people." "I am afraid," Deane said, with covert satire, "that my friends are scarcely what you would call fashionable." "Your friends?" she remarked, looking up at him. "But that doesn't matter, does it? I shall make my own friends later on." Deane looked across the table. She was patting the head of her little spaniel, and watching, with a self-possession which amounted almost to insolence, the exodus of a party from the neighboring table. "Young lady," he said, "what sort of a life did you lead before you went to Messrs. Rubicon & Moore's? I always understood that your people were very poor, and only respectably connected." "You understood the truth," she answered, with composure. "Will you tell me, then," he asked, "how you learned to wear your clothes?--how you picked up all the little tricks of social life?" The very faintest of smiles parted her lips, a smile that wrinkled at the corners of her eyes, and suddenly altered her appearance so that Deane was forced to recognize the charm which even to himself he had denied.