I fancy I turned a trifle pale.
I ordered half a bottle.
I mentioned casually that my doctor had absolutely forbidden me to drink champagne.
“What are you going to drink, then?”
“Water.”
She ate the caviare and she ate the salmon.
She talked gaily of art and literature and music.
But I wondered what the bill would come to.
When my mutton chop arrived she took me quite seriously to task.
“I see that you’re in the habit of eating a heavy luncheon.
I’m sure it’s a mistake.
Why don’t you follow my example and just eat one thing?
I’m sure you’d feel ever so much better for it.”
“I am only going to eat one thing,” I said, as the waiter came again with the bill of fare.
She waved him aside with an airy gesture.
“No, no, I never eat anything for luncheon.
Just a bite, I never want more than that, and I eat that more as an excuse for conversation than anything else.
I couldn’t possibly eat anything more—unless they had some of those giant asparagus.
I should be sorry to leave Paris without having some of them.”
My heart sank.
I had seen them in the shops and I knew that they were horribly expensive.
My mouth had often watered at the sight of them.
“Madame wants to know if you have any of those giant asparagus,” I asked the waiter.
I tried with all my might to will him to say no.
A happy smile spread over his broad, priest-like face, and he assured me that they had some so large, so splendid, so tender, that it was a marvel.
“I’m not in the least hungry,” my guest sighed, “but if you insist I don’t mind having some asparagus.”
I ordered them.
“Aren’t you going to have any?”
“No, I never eat asparagus.”
“I know there are people who don’t like them.
The fact is, you ruin your palate by all the meat you eat.”
We waited for the asparagus to be cooked.
Panic seized me.
It was not a question now how much money I should have left over for the rest of the month, but whether I had enough to pay the bill.
It would be mortifying to find myself ten francs short and be obliged to borrow from my guest.
I could not bring myself to do that.
I knew exactly how much I had and if the bill came to more I made up my mind that I would put my hand in my pocket and with a dramatic cry start up and say it had been picked.
Of course it would be awkward if she had not money enough either to pay the bill.
Then the only thing would be to leave my watch and say I would come back and pay later.
The asparagus appeared.
They were enormous, succulent and appetizing.
The smell of the melted butter tickled my nostrils as the nostrils of Jehovah were tickled by the burned offerings of the virtuous Semites.
I watched the abandoned woman thrust them down her throat in large voluptuous mouthfuls and in my polite way I discoursed on the condition of the drama in the Balkans.
At last she finished.
“Coffee?” I said.
“Yes, just an ice cream and coffee,” she answered.
I was past caring now, so I ordered coffee for myself and an ice cream and coffee for her.
“You know, there’s one thing I thoroughly believe in,” she said, as she ate the ice cream.
“One should always get up from a meal feeling one could eat a little more.”
“Are you still hungry?” I asked faintly.