“I,” said Gaveston, “cannot eat them.” And after a pause he added, simply, “My mother hates them.” Du Val looked surprised. “But I zink we’ll risk zem, all ze same,” he said, and gave his order to the waiter. Instantly Gaveston beckoned to the _maître d’hôtel_. “Two telegraph forms and a sheet of carbon paper,” he ordered, with quiet, determined voice. “Certainly, sir.” They were brought. “You excuse me a moment,” said Gaveston, and, adjusting the carbon with his own hands, scribbled a few lines with his gold-mounted pencil. “Take this,” he said to the _maître d’hôtel_. “See that it’s sent off at once. Eighteen words--that’ll be one and sixpence. You can keep the change.” He handed him the topmost form, and the borrowed carbon paper, and folding up the duplicate placed it in his breast pocket. “And now let us proceed with the feast,” he said brightly, as the waiter set out the _hors d’œuvres_ on the table. The feast proceeded. The fate-laden _ortolans_ appeared in due course, and disappeared. Du Val was delighted with them, and invoked curses upon the foreboding Capriote, but Gaveston contented himself filially with a simple dish of cod. Whilst the party were dallying over the delicious _croûte-au-pot_ which du Val had chosen as a savoury, a broad-shouldered attendant struggled painfully up to their corner, now the cynosure of every eye,[11] bearing the marble top of a table. [11] The phrase is borrowed from the writings of J. Milton (1608-1674). (LIT. EXEC.) “For you, sir,” he gasped to Gaveston, who looked up with that indefinable air of one long bred to face the adulations of the public. The fellow held the table-top mirror-wise to the young man. What was his delight to see pencilled upon it three altogether admirable drawings of himself, profile, full-face and abstract, and signed each, with a few words of homage, by an artist whose slightest brushstroke was law. A simple, but touching, tribute. “More here, sir,” said another waiter, who bore manfully an even larger marble slab. Gaveston leaned forward. Yes, it was gratifying. Two poems were pencilled upon it, addressed to the beautiful stranger in the midst, a ballade by a poet whose name had been on every lip full thirty years agone, the other a _vers libre_, by one whose fame and fortune are safe for full thirty years to come. Turning, Gaveston smiled and waved a kindly gesture of gratitude to his admirers, and calmly stirred his coffee. The waiter bore off his precious burdens to the cloak-room. “You must have them packed up and sent down to Lady Penhaligon,” laughed Monty. Du Val started. “Lady Penhaligon!” he cried hoarsely, “Lady Penhaligon? And what may she be to you, sir?” A scene seemed inevitable, but the ffoulis tact came to save the terrifying situation. “My mother, sir,” Gaveston answered with quiet dignity. “My mother,” he repeated. Monty’s laugh had frozen when he grasped the position.