Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/92

 “Impropriety becomes the height of respectability when you indulge in it, Miss Pomeroy,” he fired back. “Shall we go to the dining room?”

She nodded. “Please. I’m horribly and vulgarly hungry—I suppose you think I ought to live on hummingbirds’ wings and nightingales’ tongues—to judge from the things you say to me; I don’t really, though,” she confided to him in a low tone.

“No?” he asked, as though shocked that anything substantial in the way of food should appeal to her. “You astound me.”

“No,” she said. “I’m going to deal out death and destruction to oysters, filet mignon, with dozens of different kinds of vegetables and salad, ice cream⸺”

“That’s fine; at least you know what you want. Most women don’t seem to have the least idea of what they want to eat when they dine with a man. It’s a relief to come across one who knows her own mind—after all, your stomach—if I may be so presumptuous to suppose you have such a thing,” he smiled, “is a very personal matter.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” She smiled at him gently, and he took careful note of the dimples the smile produced in her cheeks, “And yet, I don’t think we ought to stand here and discuss my—er—internal organs in such an offhand way, do you?”

“Er—well—perhaps not. We’ll come to that later, perhaps.” He told her this gravely.

At the door of the dining room they were met by a squad of officials, respectful and obsequious, prominent among whom were the head waiter and the manager. The Morley name was a potent factor where it was known, which accounted for the ceremonial parade—almost like a coronation procession—that proceeded