The wedding-journeyers looked at each other with eyes of sad amaze. They
bowed themselves for a moment to the viands, and then by an equal impulse
refrained. They were sufficiently young, they were happy, they were
hungry; nature is great and strong, but art is greater, and before these
triumphs of the cook at the Albany depot appetite succumbed. By a
terrible tour de force they swallowed the fierce and turbid liquor in
their cups, and then speculated fantastically upon the character and
history of the materials of that breakfast.
Presently Isabel paused, played a little with her knife, and, after a
moment looked up at her husband with an arch regard and said: "I was
just thinking of a small station somewhere in the South of France where
our train once stopped for breakfast. I remember the freshness and
brightness of everything on the little tables,--the plates, the napkins,
the gleaming half-bottles of wine. They seemed to have been preparing
that breakfast for us from the beginning of time, and we were hardly
seated before they served us with great cups of 'cafe-au-lait', and the
sweetest rolls and butter; then a delicate cutlet, with an unspeakable
gravy, and potatoes,--such potatoes! Dear me, how little I ate of it! I
wish, for once, I'd had your appetite, Basil; I do indeed.
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