She looked around and nodded.

"Yes," she replied, "I think that it will do."

She was very shabbily dressed, and he, although his appearance was by no
means ordinary, was certainly not of the type which inspires
immediate respect in even the grill-room of a fashionable restaurant.
Nevertheless, they received prompt and almost officious service.
Tavernake, as he watched his companion's air, her manner of seating
herself and accepting the attentions of the head waiter, felt that
nameless impulse which was responsible for his having followed her
from Blenheim House and which he could only call curiosity, becoming
stronger. An exceedingly matter-of-fact person, he was also by instinct
and habit observant. He never doubted but that she belonged to a class
of society from which the guests at the boarding-house where they had
both lived were seldom recruited, and of which he himself knew little.
He was not in the least a snob, this young man, but he found the fact
interesting. Life with him was already very much the same as a ledger
account--a matter of debits and credits, and he had never failed to
include among the latter that curious gift of breeding for which he
himself, denied it by heritage, had somehow substituted a complete and
exceedingly rare naturalness.

"I should like," she announced, laying down the carte, "a fried sole,
some cutlets, an ice, and black coffee."

The waiter bowed.

"And for Monsieur?"

Tavernake glanced at his watch; it was already ten o'clock.

"I will take the same," he declared.

"And to drink?"

She seemed indifferent.

"Any light wine," she answered, carelessly, "white or red."

Tavernake took up the wine list and ordered sauterne. They were left
alone in their corner for a few minutes, almost the only occupants of
the place.

"You are sure that you can afford this?" she asked, looking at him
critically. "It may cost you a sovereign or thirty shillings."

He studied the prices on the menu.

"I can afford it quite well and I have plenty of money with me," he
assured her, "but I do not think that it will cost more than eighteen
shillings. While we are waiting for the sole, shall we talk? I can tell
you, if you choose to hear, why I followed you from the boardinghouse."

"I don't mind listening to you," she told him, "or I will talk with
you about anything you like. There is only one subject which I cannot
discuss; that subject is myself and my own doings."

Tavernake was