from her as he answered it. Two waiters
entered obsequiously, one bearing a serving table, the other holding
above his head a large tray containing covered dishes and glasses.

"I could do with a cocktail!" Ditmar exclaimed, and the waiter smiled as
he served them. "Here's how!" he said, giving her a glass containing a
yellow liquid.

She tasted it, made a grimace, and set it down hastily.

"What's the trouble?" he asked, laughing, as she hurried to the table and
took a drink of water.

"It's horrid!" she cried.

"Oh, you'll get over that idea," he told her. "You'll be crazy about
'em."

"I never want to taste another," she declared.

He laughed again. He had taken his at a swallow, but almost nullifying
its effect was this confirmation--if indeed he had needed it--of the
extent of her inexperience. She was, in truth, untouched by the world
--the world in which he had lived. He pulled out her chair for her and
she sat down, confronted by a series of knives, forks, and spoons on
either side of a plate of oysters. Oysters served in this fashion,
needless to say, had never formed part of the menu in Fillmore Street, or
in any Hampton restaurant where she had lunched. But she saw that Ditmar
had chosen a little fork with three prongs, and she followed his example.

"You mustn't tell me you don't like Cotuits!" he exclaimed.

She touched one, delicately, with her fork.

"They're alive!" she exclaimed, though the custom of consuming them thus
was by no means unknown to her. Lise had often boasted of a taste for
oysters on the shell, though really preferring them smothered with red
catsup in a "cocktail."

"They're alive, but they don't know it. They won't eat you," Ditmar
replied gleefully. "Squeeze a little lemon on one." Another sort of
woman, he reflected, would have feigned a familiarity with the dish.

She obeyed him, put one in her mouth, gave a little shiver, and swallowed
it quickly.

"Well?" he said. "It isn't bad, is it?"

"It seems so queer to eat anything alive, and enjoy it," she said, as she
ate the rest of them.

"If you think they're good here you ought to taste them on the Cape,
right out of the water," he declared, and went on to relate how he had
once eaten a fabulous number in a contest with a friend of his, and won a
bet. He was fond of talking about wagers he had won. Betting had lent a
zest to his life. "We'll roll down there together some day next summer,
little girl. It's a great p