The majority of the men were listening to gossip about their colleagues in the Cafe Cardinal across the way.  Ambroise alone sat apart and patted and smoothed the salt in its receptacles.  He was a young man from some little town in Alsace, a furious patriot, and the butt of his companions—­for he was the latest comer in the Cafe Riche.  Though he told his family name, Nettier, and declared that his father and mother were of French blood, he was called “the German.”  He was good-looking, very blond, with big, innocent blue eyes; and while he was never molested personally,—­a short, sharp tussle with a cook had proved him to be a man of muscle,—­behind his back his walk was mimicked, his precise attitudes were openly bantered.  But Ambroise stood this torture gantlet equably.  He had lived long enough among Germans to copy their impassive manner and, coupled with a natural contempt for his fellow-monkeys in the cage, he knew that perhaps in a day a new man would receive all these unwelcome attentions.  Moreover, his work, clear-cut, unobtrusive, and capable, pleased M. Joseph.  And when the patron himself dined at the cafe, Ambroise was the garcon selected to wait upon him.  Hence the jealousy of his colleagues.  Couple to this the fact that he was reported miserly, and had saved a large sum—­which were all sufficient reasons for his unpopularity.

As the afternoon wore on little airs began to play in the tree-tops; the street watering carts had been assiduous, and before the terrace water had been sprinkled by the piccolos so effectively that at five o’clock, when the jaded stock-brokers, journalists, and business men began to flock in, each for his aperitif, the cafe was comparatively cool.

A few women’s frocks relieved the picture with discreet or joyous shades of white and pink.  Ambroise was diligent and served his regular customers, the men who grumbled if any one occupied their favourite corners.  Absinthe nicely iced, dominoes, the evening papers—­these he brought as he welcomed familiar faces.  But his thoughts were not his own, and his pose when not in service was listless, even bored.  Would she return that evening with the same crowd—­was the idea that had taken possession of his brain.  He was very timid in the presence of women, and it diverted the waiters to see him blush when he waited upon the gorgeous birds that thronged the aviary at night, making its walls echo with their chattering, quarrels, laughter.  This provincial, modest, sensitive, the only child of old-fashioned parents, was stupefied and shocked in the presence of the over-decorated and under-dressed creatures, daubed like idols, who began to flock in the cafe, with or without escorts, after eleven o’clock every night in the year.  He knew them all by name.  He knew their histories.  He could detect at a glance whether they were unhappy or merely depressed by the rain, whether they drank champagne from happiness or desperation.  Notwithstanding his dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty.  He noted that they were always thirsty.  They smoked more than they ate, and whispered more, if no men were present, than they smoked.  But then, men were seldom absent.