one cocktail apiece before dinner. The bill was something over $15. Mr. Harding tipped the waiter $1.50. I watched his face as he counted out the money for the waiter. After the waiter had gone, he looked across at me and shrugged his shoulders. "You know, Nan, I am not penurious, but a bill like that is really ridiculous." Then quickly the look of impatience was gone and the incident closed.
I used to love these dinners with Mr. Harding. They were so sweetly intimate, and it was a joy just to sit and look at him. The way he used his hands, the adorable way he used to put choice bits of meat from his own plate onto mine, the way he would say with a sort of tense seriousness, "That's a very becoming hat, Nan," or, "God, Nan, you're pretty!" used to go to my head like wine and make food seem for the moment the least needful thing in the world.
But there was nothing whatever the matter with my appetite. Perhaps I was still adding stature at twenty, which has been known to give zest to one's appetite. Whatever the reason, it would not be exaggerating greatly to admit that I was, at least in my own opinion, quite a young gormandizer. I remember writing to Mr. Harding, "You're not in love with a girl—she's a hungry little animal!"
Mr. Harding himself was, I thought, quite an epicure, despite the fact that he could enjoy plain, substantial food. Eggs were my breakfast stand-by, but invariably Mr. Harding's query when we breakfasted together would be, "Will you have codfish cakes with me this morning, dearie?" In fact, I do not remember that he seemed to care for eggs at all. He seemed fond of honey-dew melon, I remember. He would look across the table (which seemed to me always to be at least half a mile wide!) and inquire smilingly, "How about a little
