MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 245

explained, while the ancient foreigner poured out the
wine, how difficult it was to do all one wanted to do;
what with one thing and another, and then, fortified by
the burgundy and determined to drive old Warwick out
of the conversation for a time, she went on to tell him
more about the office and the Club. He listened atten-
tively, ^though xvith just the faintest suggestion of
patronage. Obviously he thought a good deal more of
himself these days, now that he had made such a hit with
his old Warwick of the Chestervern Agricultural. But
then all men were alike in that: they all thought they
were marvellous. However, she could tell from the way
he looked at her that he still thought she was marvellous
too, which was very pleasant. She could feel herself get-
ting steadily better looking and more attractive.

This could not be said about the dinner. The chicken
was not marvellous, was not even pleasant. Like many
other places in Soho, this restaurant evidently had a
contract that compelled it to accept only those parts of
a chicken that could not be called breast, wing, or leg
It specialised in chicken skin. The salad could be eaten,
but its green stuff seemed to have been grown in some
London back garden behind a sooty privet hedge. The
sweet was composed of a very small ice, the paper in
which it had been delivered from the van at the back
door, and some coloured water that might have been
part of the ice two hours before. That was the dinner,
a miserable affair., Even Norman seemed to have a
suspicion that it had not been very good, but he did not
apologise for it, perhaps out of loyalty to old Warwick.
Miss Matfield, in despair, had had two full glasses of
the burgundy, a raw and potent concoction, which had
produced at once a rather muzzy effeci in her mind so