“Very much.”

So they passed through the other door, to a little square hall, lighted by a skylight, with a stairway going up to the roof.

“I took the upper floor, so as to get good air and the view of the city and the bay, which is very fine,” Peter said.  “And I have a staircase to the roof, so that in good weather I can go up there.”

“I wondered what the great firm was doing up ten stories,” said Watts.

“Ogden and Rivington have been very good in yielding to my idiosyncracies.  This is my mealing closet.”

It was a room nine feet square, panelled, ceiled and floored in mahogany, and the table and six chairs were made of the same material.

“So this is what the papers call the ‘Stirling political incubator?’ It doesn’t look like a place for hatching dark plots,” said Watts.

“Sometimes I have a little dinner here.  Never more than six, however, for it’s too small.”

“I say, Dot, doesn’t this have a jolly cosy feeling?  Couldn’t one sit here blowy nights, with the candles lit, eating nuts and telling stories?  It makes me think of the expression, ‘snug as a bug.’”

“Miss Leroy told me, Peter, what a reputation your dinners had, and how every one was anxious to be invited just once,” said Leonore.

“But not a second time, old man.  You caught Dot’s inference, I hope?  Once is quite enough.”

“Peter, will you invite me some day?”

“Would he?” Peter longed to tell her that the place and everything it contained, including its owner—­Then Peter said to himself, “You really don’t know anything about her.  Stop your foolishness.”  Still Peter knew that—­that foolishness was nice.  He said, “People only care for my dinners because they are few and far between, and their being way down here in the city, after business hours, makes them something to talk about.  Society wants badly something to talk about most of the time.  Of course, my friends are invited.”  Peter looked down at Leonore, and she understood, without, his saying so, that she was to be a future guest.

“How do you manage about the prog, chum?”

“Mr. Le Grand had a man—­a Maryland darky—­whom he turned over to me.  He looks after me generally, but his true forte is cooking.  For oysters and fish and game I can’t find his equal.  And, as I never attempt very elaborate dinners, he cooks and serves for a party of six in very good shape.  We are not much in haste down here after six, because it’s so still and quiet.  The hurry’s gone up-town to the social slaves.  Suppose you stay and try his skill at lunch to-day?  My partners generally are with me, and Jenifer always has something good for them.”

“By all means,” said Watts.

But Leonore said:  “No.  We mustn’t make a nuisance of ourselves the first time we come.”  Peter and Watts tried to persuade her, but she was not persuadable.  Leonore had no intention, no matter how good a time it meant, of lunching sola with four men.