In spite of the sincerest intention not to arrive too soon, Henry reached the Louvre Restaurant a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. He had meant to come in an omnibus, and descend¹ from it at Piccadilly Circus, but his attire² made him feel self-conscious, and he had walked on, allowing omnibus after omnibus to pass him, in the hope of being able to get into an empty one; until at last, afraid that he was risking his fine reputation for exact promptitude, he had suddenly yielded to the alluring³ gesture of a cabman.  
The commissionaire of the Louvre, who stood six feet six and a half inches high, who wore a coat like the side of a blue house divided by means of pairs of buttons into eighty-five storeys, who had the face of a poet addicted⁴ to blank verse, and who was one of the glories of the Louvre, stepped across the pavement in one stride and assisted Henry to alight. Henry had meant to give the cabman eighteenpence, but the occult influence of the glorious commissionaire mysteriously compelled him, much against his will, to make it half a crown. He hesitated whether to await Geraldine within the Louvre or without; he was rather bashful about entering (hitherto he had never flown higher than Sweeting's). The commissionaire, however, attributing this indecision to Henry's unwillingness⁵ to open doors for himself, stepped back across the pavement in another stride, and held the portal ajar. Henry had no alternative but to pass beneath the commissionaire's bended and respectful head. Once within the gorgeous twilit hall of the Louvre, Henry was set upon by two very diminutive⁶ and infantile replicas⁷ of the commissionaire, one of whom staggered away with his overcoat, while the other secured the remainder of the booty in the shape of his hat, muffler, and stick, and left Henry naked. I say 'naked' purposely. Anyone who has dreamed the familiar dream of being discovered in a state of nudity amid a roomful of clothed and haughty⁸ strangers may, by recalling his sensations, realize Henry's feelings as he stood alone and unfriended there, exposed for the first time in his life in evening dress to the vulgar gaze. Several minutes passed before Henry could conquer the delusion⁹ that everybody was staring at him in amused curiosity. Having conquered it, he sank sternly into a chair, and surreptitiously felt the sovereigns in his pocket.
 
Soon an official bore down on him, wearing a massive silver necklet which fell gracefully¹⁰ over his chest. Henry saw and trembled.
 
'Are you expecting someone, sir?' the man whispered in a velvety¹¹ and confidential¹² voice, as who should say: 'Have no secrets from me. I am discretion¹³ itself.'
 
'Yes,' answered Henry boldly, and he was inclined to add: 'But it's all right, you know. I've nothing to be ashamed of.'
 
'Have you booked a table, sir?' the official proceeded with relentless¹⁴ suavity¹⁵. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air and gently clanked.
 
'No,' said Henry, and then hastened to assure the official: 'But I want one.' The idea of booking tables at a restaurant struck him as a surprising novelty.
 
'Upstairs or down, sir? Perhaps you'd prefer the balcony? For two, sir? I'll see, sir. We're always rather full. What name, sir?'
 
'Knight,' said Henry majestically¹⁶.
 
He was a bad starter, but once started he could travel fast. Already he was beginning to feel at home in the princely foyer of the Louvre, and to stare at new arrivals with a cold and supercilious¹⁷ stare. His complacency, however, was roughly disturbed by a sudden alarm lest Geraldine might not come in evening-dress, might not have quite appreciated what the Louvre was.
 
'Table No. 16, sir,' said the chain-wearer in his ear, as if depositing with him a state-secret.
 
'Right,' said Henry, and at the same instant she irradiated the hall like a vision.
 
'Am I not prompt?' she demanded sweetly, as she took a light wrap from her shoulders.
 
Henry began to talk very rapidly and rather loudly. 'I thought you'd prefer the balcony,' he said with a tremendous air of the man about town; 'so I got a table upstairs. No. 16, I fancy it is.'
 
She was in evening-dress. There could be no doubt about that; it was a point upon which opinions could not possibly conflict. She was in evening-dress.
 
 
 
'Now tell me all about yourself,' Henry suggested. They were in the middle of the dinner.
 
'Oh, you can't be interested in the affairs of poor little me!'
 
'Can't I!'
 
He had never been so ecstatically happy in his life before. In fact, he had not hitherto suspected even the possibility of that rapture¹⁸. In the first place, he perceived that in choosing the Louvre he had builded better than he knew. He saw that the Louvre was perfect. Such napery, such argent, such crystal, such porcelain¹⁹, such flowers, such electric and glowing splendour, such food and so many kinds of it, such men, such women, such chattering²⁰ gaiety, such a conspiracy²¹ on the part of menials to persuade him that he was the Shah of Persia, and Geraldine the peerless Circassian odalisque! The reality left his fancy far behind. In the second place, owing to his prudence²² in looking up the subject in Chambers²³' Encyclopædia earlier in the day, he, who was almost a teetotaler, had cut a more than tolerable figure in handling the wine-list. He had gathered that champagne²⁴ was in truth scarcely worthy²⁵ of its reputation among the uninitiated, that the greatest of all wines was burgundy, and that the greatest of all burgundies was Romanée-Conti. 'Got a good Romanée-Conti?' he said casually²⁶ to the waiter. It was immense, the look of genuine respect that came into the face of the waiter. The Louvre had a good Romanée-Conti. Its price, two pounds five a bottle, staggered Henry, and he thought of his poor mother and aunt at the tea-meeting, but his impassive features showed no sign of the internal agitation²⁷. And when he had drunk half a glass of the incomparable fluid, he felt that a hundred and two pounds five a bottle would not have been too much to pay for it. The physical, moral, and spiritual effects upon him of that wine were remarkable²⁸ in the highest degree. That wine banished²⁹ instantly all awkwardness, diffidence, timidity, taciturnity, and m............