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236 with such astonishment, to say nothing else, that he retreated precipitately backwards, as if fearful that I was about to devour him then and there. I stumbled on.

"I entreat your forgiveness, but I—I hadn't the faintest notion you were hungry."

"No—you wouldn't have."

"Meaning that I am the sort of person who never does know anything? You are right; I am. But where shall we go? I believe there's some sort of place in the station where we can get something to eat."

"The nearest, please."

"But—I'm afraid that's horrid."

"Don't you know any place which isn't horrid?"

Scarcely ever before had my constitutional stupidity been so much to the front. The missing of the train, the discovery that I had actually proposed to take my companion to Ostend foodless, and in a state approaching to starvation, the fact that the paper-boys were repeating, under my very nose, their parrot cry, "Extraordinary scene at an inquest!"—these things, joined to the confusion around, seemed to addle my brain. For the moment I could not think where I could take her to get something decent to eat. Still doubtful, I was making for the station restaurant when some one caught me by the arm. It was Mr.