I was relieved to find that she accepted the tea and sandwiches the waitress had brought without parley. It is with shame I confess that in the first moments of my encounter I believed her capable of quarreling with a waitress; but she thanked the girl pleasantly, lifting her head with a smile that illumined her face attractively. Her demand for a cocktail had not been wholly convincing as to her sincerity, and I wondered whether she were not playing a part of some kind. She suggested pleasant and wholesome things--tiny gardens with neat borders of box and primly-ordered beds of spicy, old-fashioned pinks before the day of carnations, and the verbenas, heliotrope, and honeysuckle we associate with our grandmothers' taste in floriculture. Or perhaps I strike nearer the gold with an intimation of a sunny window-ledge, banked neatly and not too abundantly in geraniums. In any event the impression was wholly agreeable. I had to do with a lady and a lady of no mean degree. The marks of breeding were upon her, and she spoke with that quiet authority that is the despair of the vain and vulgar. Her features were small and delicate; her ringless hands were perfectly formed, and both face and hands belied the age to which she had so frankly confessed. She was more than twice my age, and there was not the slightest reason why she should not address me if it pleased her to do so; and her obsession as to the potency of the numeral seven was not in itself proof of an ill-balanced mind. I recalled that my own mother had, throughout her life, imputed all manner of occult powers and influences to the number thirteen, and I have myself always been averse to walking beneath a ladder. Musing thus, I reached the conclusion that this encounter was very likely the sort of thing that happened to patrons of the Asolando. My time has, however, a certain value, and I began to wonder just how I should escape. I was about to excuse myself when my companion suddenly put down her cup and addressed me with a directness that seemed habitual in her. "I have formed an excellent opinion of your bringing up from the manner in which you have suffered my advances, if I may so call them. You act and speak like a gentleman of education. I imagine from your being in this strange place that you may be a water-colorist or a designer of _l'art-nouveau_ wall-papers, though I trust for your own sake that I am mistaken. Or it may be that you are a magazine poet, though when I tell you that I read no poets but Isaiah and Walt Whitman, you will understand that mere verse does not attract me. All this"--and she indicated the mottoes on the wall with a slight movement of the head--"is the sheerest rubbish, a form of disease. Will you kindly tell me the nature of your occupation?" I produced one of my professional cards.