"Do you realize," interrupted the girl, with a laugh that was melody itself, "that you are feasting me upon dinner-music without dinner. It must be ages since we began that imaginary feast. But now, I am quite sure we are at the black coffee. And I have been able to notice nothing except your ardor in debate. You were as eager as if you were being contradicted." "You see," he said, "it only proves my point. Dinner-music is an abomination. It takes the taste of the food away. While I was playing, you admit, you tasted nothing between the soup and the coffee. Whereas, in point of fact--" "Or fancy?" "As you please. At any rate--the menu was really something out of the common. There were some delightful wines. A sherry that the innkeeper had bought of a bankrupt nobleman; so would run his fable for the occasion, and we would believe it, because, in cases of that sort, it takes a very bad wine to make one pooh-pooh its pedigree. A Madeira that had been hidden in a cellar since 1812. We would believe that, every word of it, because we would know that there was really no Madeira in all the world; and we must choose between insulting our stomachs or our intelligence. And then the coffee. It would come in the tiniest, most transparent, most fragile--" "Yes," she laughed, "I dare say. As transparent and as fragile as the entire fabric of our repast, I have no doubt. But--pity me, do!--I shall have to leave the beautiful banquet about where you have put it, in the air. I have a ticking conscience here that says--" "Oh, hide it," he supplicated, "hide it. Watches are nothing but mechanisms that are jealous of happiness; whenever there is a happy hour a watch tries to end it. When I am king I shall prohibit the manufacture and sale of watches. The fact that they may be carried about so easily is one of their chief vices; one never knows nowadays from what corner a woman will not bring one; they carry them on their wrists, their parasols, their waists, their shoulders. Can you be so cruel as to let that little golden monster spoil me my hour of happiness--" "But I would have to be cruel one way or the other. You see, my father will wonder what has become of me. He expects me to dinner." "Ah, well," he admitted soberly, if a little sadly, "we must not keep him waiting. You must tell the Professor where we have been, and what we said, and how silly I was, and--Heigho, I wish I could tell you how the little hour with you has buoyed me up. Your presence seems to stir my possibilities for good. I wish I could see you oftener. I feel like the provincial who says good-bye with a: 'May I come 'round this evening?' as a rider." "A doubtful compliment, if I make you rustic," she said. "But I have something on this evening; an appointment with a man. The most beautiful man in the world, and the best, and the kindest--" "His name?" he cried, with elaborate pretense of melodrama, for he saw that she was full of whimsies. "Professor Vanlief," she curtsied.