Three Weeks | Page 4

dress for dinner now, and I'll finish this to-night."
Paul dressed for dinner; his temper was vile, and his valet trembled. Then he went down into the restaurant scowling, and was ungracious to the polite and conciliating waiters, ordering his food and a bottle of claret as if they had done him an injury. "Anglais," they said to one another behind the serving-screen, pointing their thumbs at him--"he pay but he damn."
Then Paul sent for the New York Herald and propped it up in front of him, prodding at some olives with his fork, one occasionally reaching his mouth, while he read, and awaited his soup.
The table next to him in this quiet corner was laid for one, and had a bunch of roses in the centre, just two or three exquisite blooms that he was familiar with the appearance of in the Paris shops. Nearly all the other tables were empty or emptying; he had dined very late. Who could want roses eating alone? The menu, too, was written out and ready, and an expression of expectancy lightened the face of the head waiter--who himself brought a bottle of most carefully decanted red wine, feeling the temperature through the fine glass with the air of a great connoisseur.
"One of those over-fed foreign brutes of no sex, I suppose," Paul said to himself, and turned to the sporting notes in front of him.
He did not look up again until he heard the rustle of a dress.
The woman had to pass him--even so close that the heavy silk touched his foot. He fancied he smelt tuberoses, but it was not until she sat down, and he again looked at her, that he perceived a knot of them tucked into the front of her bodice.
A woman to order dinner for herself beforehand, and have special wine and special roses--special attention, too! It was simply disgusting!
Paul frowned. He brought his brown eyebrows close together, and glared at the creature with his blue young eyes.
An elderly, dignified servant in black livery stood behind her chair. She herself was all in black, and her hat--an expensive, distinguished-looking hat--cast a shadow over her eyes. He could just see they were cast down on her plate. Her face was white, he saw that plainly enough, startlingly white, like a magnolia bloom, and contained no marked features. No features at all! he said to himself. Yes--he was wrong, she had certainly a mouth worth looking at again. It was so red. Not large and pink and laughingly open like Isabella's, but straight and chiselled, and red, red, red.
Paul was young, but he knew paint when he saw it, and this red was real, and vivid, and disconcerted him.
He began his soup--hers came at the same time; she had only toyed with some caviare by way of hors d'oeuvre, and it angered him to notice the obsequiousness of the waiters, who passed each thing to the dignified servant to be placed before the lady by his hand. Who was she to be served with this respect and rapidity?
Only her red wine the ma?tre d'h?tel poured into her glass himself. She lifted it up to the light to see the clear ruby, then she sipped it and scented its bouquet, the ma?tre d'h?tel anxiously awaiting her verdict the while. "Bon," was all she said, and the weight of the world seemed to fall from the man's sloping shoulders as he bowed and moved aside.
Paul's irritation grew. "She's well over thirty," he said to himself. "I suppose she has nothing else to live for! I wonder what the devil she'll eat next!"
She ate a delicate truite bleu, but she did not touch her wine again the while. She had almost finished the fish before Paul's sole au vin blanc arrived upon the scene, and this angered him the more. Why should he wait for his dinner while this woman feasted? Why, indeed. What would her next course be? He found himself unpleasantly interested to know. The tenderest _selle d'agneau au lait_ and the youngest green peas made their appearance, and again the ma?tre d'h?tel returned, having mixed the salad.
Paul noticed with all these things the lady ate but a small portion of each. And it was not until a fat quail arrived later, while he himself was trying to get through two mutton chops à l'anglaise, that she again tasted her claret. Yes, it was claret, he felt sure, and probably wonderful claret at that. Confound her! Paul turned to the wine list. What could it be? Chateau Latour at fifteen francs? Chateau Margaux, or Chateau Lafite at twenty?--or possibly it was not here at all, and was special, too--like the roses and the attention. He called his waiter and ordered some port--he felt he could not drink another drop of his