After her companions left her Lady Agnes rested for five minutes in
silence with her elder daughter, at the end of which time she observed:
"I suppose one must have food at any rate," and, getting up, quitted the
place where they had been sitting. "And where are we to go? I hate
eating out of doors," she went on.
"Dear me, when one comes to Paris--!" Grace returned in a tone
apparently implying that in so rash an adventure one must be prepared
for compromises and concessions. The two ladies wandered to where they
saw a large sign of "Buffet" suspended in the air, entering a precinct
reserved for little white-clothed tables, straw-covered chairs and
long-aproned waiters. One of these functionaries approached them with
eagerness and with a _"Mesdames sont seules?"_ receiving in return from
her ladyship the slightly snappish announcement _"Non; nous sommes
beaucoup!"_ He introduced them to a table larger than most of the
others, and under his protection they took their places at it and began
rather languidly and vaguely to consider the question of the repast. The
waiter had placed a _carte_ in Lady Agnes's hands and she studied it,
through her eye-glass, with a failure of interest, while he enumerated
with professional fluency the resources of the establishment and Grace
watched the people at the other tables. She was hungry and had already
broken a morsel from a long glazed roll.
"Not cold beef and pickles, you know," she observed to her mother. Lady
Agnes gave no heed to this profane remark, but dropped her eye-glass and
laid down the greasy document. "What does it signify? I daresay it's all
nasty," Grace continued; and she added inconsequently: "If Peter comes
he's sure to be particular."
"Let him first be particular to come!" her ladyship exclaimed, turning a
cold eye upon the waiter.
_"Poulet chasseur, filets mignons sauce bearnaise,"_ the man suggested.
"You'll give us what I tell you," said Lady Agnes; and she mentioned
with distinctness and authority the dishes of which she desired that the
meal should be composed. He interjected three or four more suggestions,
but as they produced absolutely no impression on her he became silent
and submissive, doing justice apparently to her ideas. For Lady Agnes
had ideas, and, though it had suited her humour ten minutes before to
profess herself helpless in such a case, the manner in which she imposed
them on the waiter as original, practical, and economical, showed the
high executive woman, the mother of children, the daughter of earls, the
consort of an official, the dispenser of hospitality, looking back upon
a lifetime of luncheons. She carried many cares, and the feeding of
multitudes--she was honourably conscious of having fed them decently, as
she had always done everything--had ever been one of them. "Everything's
absurdly dear," she remarked to her daughter as the waiter went away. To
this remark Grace made no answer. She had been used for a long time back
to hearing that everything was very dear; it was what one always
expected. So she found the case herself, but she was silent and
inventive about it, and nothing further passed, in the way of
conversation with her mother, while they waited for the latter's orders
to be executed, till Lady Agnes reflected audibly: "He makes me unhappy,
the way he talks about Julia."
"Sometimes I think he does it to torment one. One can't mention her!"
Grace responded.
"It's better not to mention her, but to leave it alone."
"Yet he never mentions her of himself."
"In some cases that's supposed to show that people like people--though
of course something more's required to prove it," Lady Agnes continued
to meditate. "Sometimes I think he's thinking of her, then at others I
can't fancy _what_ he's thinking of."
"It would be awfully suitable," said Grace, biting her roll.
Her companion had a pause, as if looking for some higher ground to put
it upon. Then she appeared to find this loftier level in the
observation: "Of course he must like her--he has known her always."
"Nothing can be plainer than that she likes him," Grace opined.
"Poor Julia!" Lady Agnes almost wailed; and her tone suggested that she
knew more about that than she was ready to state.
"It isn't as if she wasn't clever and well read," her daughter went on.
"If there were nothing else there would be a reason in her being so
interested in politics, in everything that he is."
"Ah what Nick is--that's what I sometimes wonder!"
Grace eyed her parent in some despair: "Why, mother, isn't he going to
be like papa?" She waited for an answer that didn't come; after which
she pursued: "I thought you thought him so like him already."
"Well, I don't," said Lady Agnes quietly.
"Who is then? Certainly Percy isn't."