ses because my
companion insisted on being "lively," and expected a "certain liveliness"
on my front at the same moment. If you _must_ eat in company--then two
is an ideal number. But don't place your companion opposite you. Many a
"sweet nothing" has been lost in bitterness because the person to whom it
was addressed saw inevitably a morsel of caviare preparing to become
nourishment. No, the best place for a solitary companion at meals is,
either on the right or on the left, never immediately in front. I have
sat opposite some of the most handsome people, and wished all the time
that I could have changed them into a "view of sheep"--even one of a
brick wall would have been better than nothing. When you are talking to
someone at your side, you can turn your face in their direction for the
first few words, and then look at something else for the rest of the
sentence. But if you turn your head away while talking to someone
immediately in front of you--if not necessarily rude, it gives at least
the impression that you are merely talking because to talk is expected of
you, otherwise you are slightly bored. I know that the popular picture
of an Ideal Dinner for Two is one of an exquisitely gowned woman sitting
so close to the man-she-loves that only a spiral table decoration
prevents their noses from rubbing; with a quart bottle of champagne
reclining in a drunken attitude in a bucket of ice, and a basket of
choice fruit untouched on the table. But if you examine that picture of
the ideal, you will always discover that the artist has missed the ugly
foundations of his fancy, as it were, by jumping over the soup and fish,
the joint, the entree, and the sweet, and has got his lovers to the
coffee, the cigar-and-liqueur stage, when, if the truth be known, all the
hurdles over which the "horse of disillusion" may come a nasty cropper
have been passed. So, if you be wise, sit on the side of your
best-beloved until the nourishing part of your gastronomic "enfin seul"
is over; and then, if you must gaze into his eyes and he into yours, move
your seat round--and your evening will probably end by both of you being
in the same infatuated state in which you began it. It is only by the
strictest attention to the most minor among the minor details of life,
that a clever woman is able to keep up the reputation of charm and beauty
among her closest intimates. She realises that Nature has given to very
few people a "sneeze" which