Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/282

 He remembered the time and his duties.

"It is my last night on to-night. I ought to be back at the hospital."

"Glad it's over?"

"Very. The most beastly month. But to-morrow"

"Free. So am I. It is my free evening."

"I say,—I'd like to. But would you,—come to a theatre or something?"

"I get enough theatre."

"Of course. Well,—a little dinner somewhere?"

"I'd love to."

Once before Kit had visited that little French restaurant in Soho where both the perfumes and the waitresses were foreign, and some of the chairs were none too steady on the legs. Christopher became the occupant of such a chair. The lovers laughed over it, leaning their elbows upon the table and looking into each other's eyes over a vase of fading flowers. Mary's hat threw a faint shadow, so that her forehead and eyes seemed more dim and elusive than her mouth.

"Monsieur?"

Kit ordered dinner, while the painted lady at his elbow jotted down his choice.

"I want some wine."

"Louis. Le carte des vins."

A swarthy little wine-waiter tried to persuade Kit to buy bad champagne, but being the son of an hotel-keeper he had some knowledge of wine.

"Red or white?"

He looked at Mary, and her eyes seemed half closed.

"Red."

"A bottle of Chateau Ducru."

"Bien, monsieur."

They clinked glasses, and Kit's fingers touched the girl's. No words were spoken. It was the sacramental wine of lovers.

Afterwards, they wandered as though London was a dream city, brilliant and strange. They went arm in arm, drifting, pausing inconsequently to look in a lighted window—and so to look at each other. Their eyes were full of the varying lights of the night. In the dim and shadowy