"She speaks of her 'position,' too. It's
'awkward,' it seems, and 'embarrassing,' and 'dangerous.' It needn't be,
though. She made it for herself, and she can unmake it whenever she
chooses. Well, I'll try all this again, when I've got more time; it will
keep. What is this, though, it says at the end? H'm; I am to remember
that if I have enemies I also have fast friends, ever yours
sincerely--oh, _that's_ all right." He crammed the sheets into his
bureau-drawer, drew on his gloves, selected a stick to his taste, gave
himself a last look in the glass, and sauntered out to dinner.
He had discovered a French restaurant within a kilometre of the house,
where he could dine _a prix fixe_ in a _cabinet particulier_ for five
francs, including a _demi-bouteille_ of _ordinaire_.
"That's something like," he declared. "That's what I'm used to!" He
thought with a shudder of the rest of the family going down to supper in
the basement dining-room--that time-honored, semi-subterranean dungeon.
"I'm glad, I'm sure, that they are going to have their new dining-room
above-ground; for their own sakes, that is to say--not that it will
matter the least to _me_!"
XVI
Truesdale airily waved the remaining coin from the plate to the waiter's
pocket and rose to go. He never omitted the giving of a _pour-boire_; "it
helps so much to increase the illusion," he said. The waiters,
accordingly, bestowed an exaggerated attention upon his hat and coat, and
had developed an almost clinging affection for his stick.
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