Behind the archway in the
neighbouring room two waiters met, and in their nods and glances was
that same unconscious sympathy, the same conscious grin. And the old
habitue thought:
'How long will it last?'.... "Waiter, some coffee and my bill!"
He had meant to go to the play, but he lingered instead to look at Mrs.
Bellew's white shoulders and bright eyes in the kindly mirror. And he
thought:
'Young days at present. Ah, young days!'....
"Waiter, a Benedictine!" And hearing her laugh, O his old heart ached.
'No one,' he thought, 'will ever laugh like that for me again!'....
"Here, waiter, how's this? You've charged me for an ice!" But when the
waiter had gone he glanced back into the mirror, and saw them clink
their glasses filled with golden bubbling wine, and he thought: 'Wish
you good luck! For a flash of those teeth, my dear, I'd give----'
But his eyes fell on the paper flowers adorning his little table--yellow
and red and green; hard, lifeless, tawdry. He saw them suddenly as they
were, with the dregs of wine in his glass, the spill of gravy on the
cloth, the ruin of the nuts that he had eaten. Wheezing and coughing,
'This place is not what it was,' he thought; 'I shan't come here again!'
He struggled into his coat to go, but he looked once more in the mirror,
and met their eyes resting on himself.
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