Sylvia hesitated dangerously. ‘I don’t think I want as much as a whole chicken. I’ll have a wing,’ she uttered at last. I breathed freely.
‘But the wing is larger than the chicken, madam,’ said the fiend. I longed to ask him to explain that curious mathematical perversion, but a latent sense of gallantry deterred me. I felt like clubbing him. But civilization suffered me to go on suffering in silence. ‘Go away,’ I whispered inwardly. ‘Oh, go away!’ But I sat still, resigned. Only my left eyelid began to twitch a little nervously.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll have the whole chicken, then.’
Five hundred roubles! £2 10s. for a solitary chicken! My dead grandfather raised his bushy eyebrows. And I already pictured to myself how under the removed restraints of matrimony, probably in my braces and shirt-sleeves, I would exhort my wife to cut down her criminal expenditure.
There was a variety of ice-creams at ‘popular prices’, but Sylvia ordered a silly dish called ‘Pêche Melba’—and proportionately more expensive.
‘What wine, darling?’
‘French,’ she said.
‘But what kind?’
‘White, darling.’
The waiter bent over the wine list and pointed to the figures which were double those he did not point to. ‘But what kind?’
‘Sweet. The sweetest.’
And, according to the waiter, the sweetest wine concorded with the highest figure on the list.
How I hate extravagant drinks! How I hate extravagant food! What I really wanted now, if I could have my way, was eggs and bacon and hot milk.
‘Yes, that will do,’ she said.
The waiter, bowing, whipped his napkin under the arm and retired with the air of one who has his work cut out. The band struck up a gay waltz, but in my soul was darkness.
‘Whatever is the matter, darling?’ she enquired.
‘This soup,’ I said. ‘It’s damned hot. And why should I eat soup?’
‘You eat soup at home.’
‘At home I eat it — whether it’s there or not — I mean I eat it — I don’t care — because it’s there. Automatically.’
‘Well, eat it here as you would at home,’ she said. ‘Automatically.’
‘But here — oh, well, never mind.’
Spreading the table-napkin on her knees, quickly she brought her fingers together and bending a little and closing her eyes, hurriedly mumbled grace to herself. Then she began to eat the soup, dreamily rolling her eyes.
Meanwhile, the waiter had returned. ‘I regret, madam, but no more whole chickens left. Only the wing.’ And that moment the music seemed exhilarating.
‘Cheer up,’ I said.
‘In that case,’ said she, slowly recovering from the blow, ‘I’ll have something else.’
In front of us were two women of twenty. ‘Look at those two grannies there,’ Sylvia called out aloud.
‘Sylvia!’
She smiled a beautiful bashful smile: her mouth was closed, only the lips withdrew and revealed a portion of her teeth. A delicious smile.
She rolled her eyes and talked a lot to herself, cooing like a dove. I felt she wanted that I should propose marriage to her, but she was shy to ask. ‘Major Beastly,’ she said, and blushed, ‘thought that — that — that we were — you were — my, as it were, in a word, my fiancé.’ And she blushed crimson.
‘He’s a good man, Beastly,’ I said. And she blushed again. Sylvia had brought with her to dinner a letter from a man who had proposed to her once in Japan. ‘Read this,’ she said. The letter, which struck a devil-me-care tone, ended with the words: ‘If the price of rubber goes down by one jot, I’m a ruined man.’
‘He is in the rubber trade now,’ she explained, ‘somewhere in Canada, some place called Congo or something—’
‘You mean in Africa.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘What is he? English? American?’
‘A Canadian.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘At the dance in Tokyo.’
‘And—?’
‘He wanted to marry me.’ She lowered her lashes. ‘He loved me.’
‘And you—?’
She did not answer at once. ‘He was rather like you.’
‘No excuse.’
‘Only worse.’
‘Still less.’
‘I wanted somebody to love me. And you were away.’
‘And you let him?’
‘Only one kiss — one evening.’
‘I am not listening! Not listening!’ I cried, covering my face with the table-napkin.
‘Darling, listen—’
‘No!’
‘You’re not listening,’ she laughed. Her laughter was a lovely thing.
‘I am not.’
There was silence except for the sound I made in eating the soup. She beamed at me with her lustrous eyes. ‘Tell me something.’
‘You’re Cressid — I mean Chaucer’s, not Shakespeare’s, of course.’
Like Cressida, she knew neither Chaucer nor Shakespeare.
‘When did you see him last?’
‘As we left Tokyo. He caught me while maman had turned away. We stood on the platform. He went in — and gave me a cocktail.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Yes. He drank and looked at me. “Marry me, Sylvia,” he said. “I will go away, make a lot of money on rubber, and then come back for you.”
‘ “I can’t,” I said. “I love another.” ’
‘Whom? Whom?’ I asked in alarm.
‘You. Or I liked to think so.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘ “The blackguard!” he said.’
‘Oh!’
‘I said to him that you used to kiss me without being engaged to me. “The cad!” he said. “I’ll punch his head for him.” I said you wrote very short letters. “The rotter!” he said, “taking a mean advantage of you. The scoundrel!” ’
‘That will do,’ I said. ‘I’ll punch his own silly head for him. Who is he, anyhow?’
‘ “I’ll break him in two,” he said. “The scoundrel! The blackguard! The cad!” ’
‘Now, that will do, that will do. What did you say?’
‘ “I love another,” I said. Then I held out my hand to him, like this: “Good-bye, Harry; you will probably never see me again.” And there were tears in his eyes as he turned and walked away quickly.’
‘Never mind. Eat your soup, darling.’
She did not eat but stared in front of her.
‘You’re not thinking of him?’ I asked, with suspicion.
‘No.’
‘H’m!.. Who’re you thinking of?’
‘You.’
‘Only me?’
‘Yes.’
She took a few spoonfuls and then asked, ‘Have you by any chance seen in the Daily Mail what the price of rubber—’
‘Look here,’ I said, with some ill-controlled impatience, ‘never you mind about the price of rubber. Eat your soup.’
‘Oh, when you were away I came across an ideal menu in the Daily Mail. It was supposed to be the ideal dinner for young people just engaged. And I thought then: if Alexander comes back and takes me out to dinner I must have this menu.’
‘What was it, darling?’
She looked unhappy as she strained her memory. ‘I can’t remember,’ she said.
‘Well, but some of the dishes surely?’
She strained her memory and again looked as unhappy as she could be. ‘I can’t remember.’