It was at this moment that the adventure--for it shall have no meaner name--actually began. My eyes were still enjoying the Rossetti-like vision in the cashier's tiny booth, when a figure suddenly darkened the street door just beyond her. The girl lifted her head. On the instant the lamp-key clicked as she extinguished her light, and the aureoled head ceased to be. And coming toward me down the shop I beheld a lady, a lady of years, who passed the cashier's desk with her eyes intent upon the room's inner recesses. Her gown, of a new fashionable gray, was of the severest tailor cut. Her hat was a modified fedora, gray like the gown, and adorned with a single gray feather. She was short, slight, erect, and moved with a quick bird-like motion, pausing and glancing at the vacant tables that lay between me and the door. Her air of abstraction became her, and she merged pleasantly into the color-scheme of the room. As her glance ranged the wall I thought that she searched for some favorite flower of song among the framed quotations, but I saw now that her gaze was bent too low for this. She appeared to be engaged in a calculation of some sort, and she raised a lorgnette to assist her in counting the tables. The cashier passed behind her unseen and vanished. I heard the newcomer reciting:-- "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven;" and at seven her eyes rested upon me with a look that mingled surprise and annoyance. She took a step toward me, and I started to rise, but she said quickly:-- "I beg your pardon, but this seems to be the seventh table." [Illustration: "I beg your pardon, but this seems to be the seventh table."] "Now that you call my attention to it," I remarked, gaining my feet, "I am bound to concede the point. If by any chance I am intruding"-- "Not in the least. On the other hand I beg that you remain where you are;" and without further ado she sank into a chair opposite my own. I tinkled a tiny crystal bell that was among the table-furnishings, and a waitress appeared and handed the lady who had thus introduced herself to my acquaintance a copy of the tiny card on which the articles of refreshment offered by the Asolando were indicated within a border of hand-painted field daisies. "Never mind that," said the lady in gray, ignoring the card. "You may bring me a caviare sandwich and a cocktail,--a pink one--providing,--providing,"--and she held the waitress with her eye,--"you have the imported caviare and your bar-keeper knows the proper frappé of the spirit-lifter I have named." "Pardon me, madam," replied the waitress icily, "but you have mistaken the place. The Asolando serves nothing stronger than the pure water of its own fount of Castalia; intoxicants are not permitted here."