ayoral chain, who had started out to meet them, stopped also.

"No!" she said. "I don't feel as if I could eat here. I really
couldn't."

"But why?"

"Well," she said, "I couldn't fancy it somehow. Can't we go somewhere
else?"

"Certainly we can," he agreed with an eagerness that was more than
polite.

She thanked him with another of her comfortable, sensible smiles--a
smile that took all embarrassment out of the dilemma, as balm will take
irritation from a wound. And gently she removed her hat and gown, and
her gestures and speech, and her comfortableness, from those august
precincts. And they descended to the grill-room, which was relatively
noisy, and where her roses were less conspicuous than the helmet of
Navarre, and her frock found its sisters and cousins from far lands.

"I'm not much for these restaurants," she said, over grilled kidneys.

"No?" he responded tentatively. "I'm sorry. I thought the other
night----"

"Oh yes," she broke in, "I was very glad to go, the other night, to that
place, very glad. But, you see, I'd never been in a restaurant before."

"Really?"

"No," she said, "and I felt as if I should like to try one. And the
young lady at the post office had told me that _that_ one was a splendid
one. So it is. It's beautiful. But of course they ought to be ashamed to
offer you such food. Now do you remember that sole? Sole! It was no more
sole than this glove's sole. And if it had been cooked a minute, it had
been cooked an hour, and waiting. And then look at the prices. Oh yes, I
couldn't help seeing the bill."

"I thought it was awfully cheap," said he.

"Well, _I_ didn't!" said she. "When you think that a good housekeeper
can keep everything going on ten shillings a head a _week_.... Why, it's
simply scandalous! And I suppose this place is even dearer?"

He avoided the question. "This is a better place altogether," he said.
"In fact, I don't know many places in Europe where one can eat better
than one does here."

"Don't you?" she said indulgently, as if saying, "Well, I know one, at
any rate."

"They say," he continued, "that there is no butter used in this place
that costs less than three shillings a pound."

"_No_ butter costs them three shillings a pound," said she.

"Not in London," said he. "They have it from Paris."

"And do you believe that?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Well, I don't. Any one that pays more than one-and-nine a pound for
butter, _at the most_, i