The waiter's glance wavered, he threw the weight of his body from one foot to the other. Involuntarily madame looked up.
The boy buried himself behind an expression of profound seriousness.
"Yes! _Sole Waleska_! Or, perhaps, _Coulibiac à la Russe!"_
The waiter's mouth opened in a desperate resolve to meet the worst. Madame's eyes discreetly sought her plate.
The boy threw back his head and laughed aloud at his own small jest. "Bring me two eggs _en cocotte_," he substituted, and laughed again in sheer pleasure at the waiter's sudden smile, his sudden restoration to dignity, as he hurried away to put a seal upon an order that permitted the hotel to retain its self-respect.
Again madame looked up. 'Monsieur was fond of his little pleasantry! This waiter was a good boy, but slow. They did not keep a sufficiency of servants at the Hôtel Railleux. But doubtless monsieur had noticed that?'
The boy met her inquisitive glance with disarming frankness, but his words when he answered gave little information.
'No. He had not as yet had time to notice anything.'
'But of course! Monsieur was a new arrival? He had come--when was it--?' Madame appeared to search her memory.
'But of course. Yesterday! And what a day it had been! What weather for a long journey! It had been a long journey, had it not?'
The boy looked vague. 'Oh, it had been of a sufficient length!'
Madame toyed with the remnants of her stew. 'It had, perhaps, been a journey from England? Monsieur was not French, although he had so charming a fluency in the language?' Her eyes, her whole provincial, inquisitive face begged for information, but the boy was firm.
'We are each of the country God has given us!' he informed her. Then he added with convincing certainty that madame was without doubt _Parisienne_.
Madame bridled at the soothing little falsehood.
'Alas! nothing so interesting. She was of the provinces.'
At once the ice was broken; at once they were on the footing of friends, and madame's soul poured forth its secret vanities.
'Monsieur was too kind. No, she was provincial--though, of a truth, Paris was so well known to her that she might almost claim to be _Parisienne_.'
The boy's interest was undiminished. 'Might he venture to ask if it was pleasure alone that had brought madame to the capital--or had business--?' He left the sentence discreetly unfinished.