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But I did none of these things–that is, nothing Paul Pryish or presuming. I merely beckoned to the Maitre d’Hotel, as he stood poised on the edge of the couple’s kiosk, with the order for their breakfast in his hands, and, when he had reached my half-way station on his way across the garden to the kitchen, stopped him with a question. Not with my lips–that is quite unnecessary with an old-time Maitre d’Hotel–but with my two eyebrows, one thumb, and a part of one shoulder.

“The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur–” he answered, instantly.

“And the lady?”

“Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Beraud of the Variete. She comes quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season.”

He evidently took me for an old habitue. There are some compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter.

With these solid facts in my possession I breathed a little easier. Mademoiselle Ernestine Beraud, from the little I had seen of her, was quite capable of managing her own affairs without my own or anybody else’s advice, even if I had been disposed to give it. She no doubt loved the lambent-eyed gentleman to distraction; the kiosk was their only refuge, and the whole affair was being so discreetly managed that neither the lambent-eyed gentleman nor his houri would be obliged to escape by means of the lilac-bordered path in the rear on this or any other morning.

And if they should, what did it matter to me? The little row in the cloud overhead would soon end in further torrents of tears, as all such rows do; the sun would have its way after all and dry every one of them up; the hungry part of me would have its filet and pint of St. Julien, and the painter part of me would go back to the little path by the river and finish its sketch.

Again I tried to signal the Maitre d’Hotel as he dashed past on his way to the kiosk. This time he was under one of the huge umbrellas which an “omnibus” was holding over him, Rajah-fashion. He had a plump melon, half-smothered in ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour, the rain making gargoyles of the points of the ribs of the umbrella. Evidently the breakfast was too important and the expected fee too large to intrust it to an underling. He must serve it himself.

Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for one, nor filet, nor vin ordinaire, nor waiter had appeared. The painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry.

I waited until he emerged with an empty dish, watched him grasp the giant umbrella, teeter on the edge of the kiosk for a moment, and plunge through the gravel, now rivers of water, toward my kiosk, the “omnibus” following as best he could.

“A thousand pardons, Monsieur–” he cried from beneath his shelter, as he read my face. “It will not be long now. It is coming–here, you can see for yourself–” and he pointed across the garden, and tramped on, the water spattering his ankles.

I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used over the tete-a-tete tables beneath the trees, slowly wending its way toward where I sat, with all the measured movement and dignity of a file of Eastern potentates out for an airing.

Under each umbrella were two waiters, one carrying the umbrella and the other a portion of my breakfast. The potentate under the first umbrella, who carried the wine, proved to be a waiter-in-chief; the others bearing the filet, plates, dishes, and glasses were ordinary “omnibuses,” pressed into service as palanquin-bearers by reason of the storm.

The waiter-in-chief, with the bottle, dodged from under his bungalow, leaving it outside and still open, like a stranded circus-tent, stepped into my kiosk, mopped the rain from his coat-sleeves and hands with a napkin, and, bowing solemnly, pointed to the label on the bottle. This meeting my approval, he relieved the rear-guard of the dishes, arranged the table, drew the cork of the St. Julien, filled my glass, dismissed the assistants and took his place behind my chair.