“‘Maybe,’ says she; ’that’s what I mean to find out.  And if you’ll do me a kindness,’ she adds, ’you won’t mind calling me Marie Luthier for the future, instead of Godselle.  It was my mother’s name, and I’ve a fancy for it.’

“Well, there I left her to work out the thing for herself, having come to the conclusion she was capable of doing it; and so for another couple of weeks I merely watched.  There was no doubt about his being in love with her.  He had entered that Cafe at the beginning of the month with as good an opinion of himself as a man can conveniently carry without tumbling down and falling over it.  Before the month was out he would sit with his head between his hands, evidently wondering why he had been born.  I’ve seen the game played before, and I’ve seen it played since.  A waiter has plenty of opportunities if he only makes use of them; for if it comes to a matter of figures, I suppose there’s more love-making done in a month under the electric light of the restaurant than the moon sees in a year—­leastways, so far as concerns what we call the civilised world.  I’ve seen men fooled, from boys without hair on their faces, to old men without much on their heads.  I’ve seen it done in a way that was pretty to watch, and I’ve seen it done in a manner that has made me feel that given a wig and a petticoat I could do it better myself.  But never have I seen it neater played than Marie played it on that young man of hers.  One day she would greet him for all the world like a tired child that at last has found its mother, and the next day respond to him in a style calculated to give you the idea of a small-sized empress in misfortune compelled to tolerate the familiarities of an anarchist.  One moment she would throw him a pout that said as clearly as words:  ’What a fool you are not to put your arms round me and kiss me’; and five minutes later chill him with a laugh that as good as told him he must be blind not to see that she was merely playing with him.  What happened outside the Cafe—­for now and then she would let him meet her of a morning in the Tuileries and walk down to the Cafe with her, and once or twice had allowed him to see her part of the way home—­I cannot tell you:  I only know that before strangers it was her instinct to be reserved.  I take it that on such occasions his experiences were interesting; but whether they left him elated or depressed I doubt if he could have told you himself.

“But all the time Marie herself was just going from bad to worse.  She had come to the Cafe a light-hearted, sweet-tempered girl; now, when she wasn’t engaged in her play-acting—­for that’s all it was, I could see plainly enough—­she would go about her work silent and miserable-looking, or if she spoke at all it would be to say something bitter.  Then one morning after a holiday she had asked for, and which I had given her without any questions, she came to business more like her old self than I had seen her since the afternoon Master Tom Sleight had appeared upon the scene.  All that day she went about smiling to herself; and young Flammard, presuming a bit too far maybe upon past favours, found himself sharply snubbed:  it was a bit rough on him, the whole thing.