He picked up the menu to hide his discomfort. When the waiter came he ordered the best dinner the restaurant served. He was conscious that the girl was watching him anxiously. When the waiter had gone, she said, "I can't afford to have a dinner like that."
"I thought you were dining with me," he stammered. "I--I hope you will--I shall be only too honoured...."
"I've never done a thing like this before," she said in distress. "I don't know what you are thinking of me ... but ... well, I suppose I was just desperate...." She broke off biting her lip, then she rushed on again. "I don't suppose you'll ever see me any more, so it doesn't really matter much, but...."
"I hope to see you again, many times," said Micky, with an earnestness that surprised himself.
"I suppose men are all the same," she said, after a moment. "However...." she shrugged her shoulders with a sort of recklessness that made Micky frown. She leaned back in her chair with sudden weariness. "It's very kind of you," she said disinterestedly.
"It's not kind at all," he hastened to assure her. "I'm much more pleased to be with you than you are to be with me. If it hadn't been for you I should have spent this evening alone--New Year's Eve, too," he added, with a sort of chagrin and a sudden memory of Marie Deland.
"New Year's Eve!" she echoed. She closed her eyes for a moment, and Micky had an uncomfortable sort of feeling that she was looking back on the year that was dying and could see nothing pleasant in the whole of the twelve months. Presently she opened them again with a little sigh. "Well, I don't want another year like the last one," she said.
"You won't have," he told her promptly. "I've got a sort of feeling that there are lots of good things coming along for you. The luck has to change some time or other, and if you've had a rotten time in the past you won't have it in the future."
"Don't you? I do," Micky declared. He hated the despondency in her face; he felt a strong desire to see her smiling and happy. He rattled on, talking any nonsense that came into his head.
The waiter came down the room and set the dishes on the table. He gave a sort of supercilious sniff when Micky asked for a saucer of milk for the cat. He looked at Charlie with scorn--Charlie, curled up on the girl's lap now and purring lustily.