"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!"--a young person,
dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fete. The fete,
however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held
in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was
Paris.
Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that
night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but
because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano
remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on
the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy--in
black chiffon--did not offer any and Lennox--in evening clothes--did not
ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present
historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But
he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth,
youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark.
The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy
sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the
piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed.
Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them.
"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?"
Yes, Cassy remembered it.
Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night--except
once--I haven't laughed since then."
Very good dessert, with more to follow.
"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels
like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen
the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros."
There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one.
"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw
her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really
good, good through and through."
"May I smoke?" Lennox asked.
Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He
got out a cigar.
"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint.
A man wants flesh and blood."