“Never mind,” he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully, thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.

For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle.  The potatoes looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam.  There were mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin pan.  One block of bread was by the lonely plate.  Neither hot nor cold, the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and made no pretensions to allure it.

The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated.  He strode to the windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell, and said,—­

“Dahlia, there—­I’m going to dine with you, my love.  I’ve rung the bell for more candles.  The room shivers.  That girl will see you, if you don’t take care.  Where is the key of the cupboard?  We must have some wine out.  The champagne, at all events, won’t be flat.”

He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation.  Dahlia was still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.

An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood.  When the maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the wall, tottering away to her chamber.

“Ah, poor thing!” ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the demonstration was unnecessary.  For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in a young man’s calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,—­quite the reverse.  Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life?  It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are tragic and stir us the wrong way.  However, champagne does them good:  an admirable wine—­a sure specific for the sex!

He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it forthwith.  The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia’s housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass.  He welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room royally open.

Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of comfort.  He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks.  He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a distant street:  “Jump into a cab—­champagne’s nothing without ice, even in Winter,” he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.