The lunch was a success in every way. There was just enough orchestral effort to immerse the conversation without drowning it, and Youghal was an attentive and inspired host. Through an open doorway Elaine could see the café reading-room, with its imposing array of _Neue Freie Presse_, _Berliner Tageblatt_, and other exotic newspapers hanging on the wall. She looked across at the young man seated opposite her, who gave one the impression of having centred the most serious efforts of his brain on his toilet and his food, and recalled some of the flattering remarks that the press had bestowed on his recent speeches. “Doesn’t it make you conceited, Courtenay,” she asked, “to look at all those foreign newspapers hanging there and know that most of them have got paragraphs and articles about your Persian speech?” Youghal laughed. “There’s always a chastening corrective in the thought that some of them may have printed your portrait. When once you’ve seen your features hurriedly reproduced in the _Matin_, for instance, you feel you would like to be a veiled Turkish woman for the rest of your life.” And Youghal gazed long and lovingly at his reflection in the nearest mirror, as an antidote against possible incitements to humility in the portrait gallery of fame. Elaine felt a certain soothed satisfaction in the fact that this young man, whose knowledge of the Middle East was an embarrassment to Ministers at question time and in debate, was showing himself equally well-informed on the subject of her culinary likes and dislikes. If Suzette could have been forced to attend as a witness at a neighbouring table she would have felt even happier. “Did the head waiter ask if we were engaged?” asked Elaine, when Courtenay had settled the bill, and she had finished collecting her sunshade and gloves and other impedimenta from the hands of obsequious attendants. “Yes,” said Youghal, “and he seemed quite crestfallen when I had to say ‘no.’” “It would be horrid to disappoint him when he’s looked after us so charmingly,” said Elaine; “tell him that we are.” CHAPTER X