e look of
implicit maternity that she had been fortunate enough to reflect and
symbolize for him,--but she was unable to come to any decision about
it. Her face looked to her much as it had always looked--except that
her brow and temples seemed to have become more transparent and the
blue veins there seemed to be outlined with an even bluer brush than
usual.

She was busier than she had ever been in her life. The volume of her
business was swelling. With the return of the native to the city of
his adoption--there is no native New Yorker in the strict sense of the
word--Outside Inn was besieged by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
adaptability of his race, had evolved what was practically a perfect
system of presenting the balanced ration to an unconscious populace,
and the populace was responding warmly to his treatment. It had taken
him a little time to gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand, but once he had
mastered his problem he dealt with it inspiredly. His southern
inheritance made it possible for him to apprehend if he could not
actually comprehend the taste of a people who did not want the flavor
of nutmeg in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut in their
custard pie, and he realized that their education required all the
diplomacy and skill at his command.

Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent about the use of her tables.
He grasped the essential fact that the values of food changed in the
process of cooking, and that it was necessary to Nancy's peace of mind
to calculate the amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
vegetables, and that the amount of butter and cream introduced in
their preparation was an important factor in her analysis. He also
nodded his head with evident appreciation when she discoursed to him
of the optimum amount of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
in calories of the average man, but she never quite knew whether the
matter interested him, or his native politeness constrained him to
listen to her smilingly as long as she might choose to claim his
attention. But the fact remained that there was no such cooking in any
restaurant in New York of high or low degree, as that which Gaspard
provided, and as time went on, and he realized that expense was not a
factor in Nancy's conception of a successfully conducted restaurant,
the reputation of Outside Inn increased by leaps and bounds.

To Nancy's friends-