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“Well, if you give me your name, I’ll leave a message for you here and we can arrange something. I’ll get the book out to give to you.”

7. Anger and Apology
    When Pat eventually got back to her flat in Scotland Street, she still felt angry over what Domenica had done. Their cups of coffee in Glass and Thompson’s delicatessen and café had been drunk largely in silence.
    â€œI’ve done something to upset you, haven’t I?” said Domenica, after the silence became too obvious to remain unremarked upon. “Is it to do with what I said to that young man–what was his name again?”
    â€œPeter.”
    â€œYes, Peter. A nice name, isn’t it?”
    Pat said nothing. Domenica looked at her, and frowned. “I’m sorry. I really am. I had no idea that you would be so…well, so embarrassed by all that. I did it for
you,
you know.”
    Pat looked up sharply. “You asked him to dinner, out of the blue, just like that–for
me?
”
    Domenica seemed surprised by this. “But of course I did! You don’t think that I go around picking up young men for my own sake, do you? Good heavens! I do have a sense of the appropriate, you know.”
    â€œAnd it’s appropriate to go and ask perfect strangers to dinner to meet me? Do you consider that appropriate? How did you know that I wanted to meet him anyway? Just because he looks like some ridiculous poet you’ve read…”
    Domenica put down her coffee cup–firmly. “Now wait a moment! I’m sorry if you think I’ve overstepped the mark, but I will not stand by while you refer to Rupert Brooke as a ridiculous poet. Have you read him? You have not! He wrote wonderful pastoral, allusive verse, and the story of his brief life–yes, his brief life–is really rather a moving one. So don’t call him a ridiculous poet. Please don’t. There are lots of ridiculous poets, but he wasn’t one of them. No.”
    There was a further silence. Then Pat rose to her feet. “I think we should go. I’m sorry if I got upset–and I’m sorry if I offended you. It’s just that…”
    They walked out of the delicatessen, passing Peter, working at the counter, as they did so. Pat looked away, but Domenica smiled at him, and he smiled back at her, although weakly, as one smiles at a new acquaintance of whom one is unsure.
    â€œLook, it’s not such a terrible thing I’ve done,” said Domenica, as they went out into the street. “And if it embarrasses you, I suggest that we just forget the whole thing.”
    She looked at Pat, who turned to her, frowning. “No,” she said. “Don’t do that.”
    Domenica raised an eyebrow. “Oh? So you’d like me to invite him after all? Do I detect…do I detect a slight mellowing?”
    Pat looked down at the ground. Her feelings were confused. She was irritated by the assumptions that Domenica had made, but there was something about Peter that interested her, and she had seen that he had looked at her too, that he had noticed her. There was something that her friends called “the look”, that glance, that second take, which gives everything away. One could not mistake the look when one received it; it was unambiguous.
    Peter had given her the look. Had she been by herself, she would have not known what to do about it. They might have exchanged further glances, but it was difficult to take matters further when you were working, as he was. You could hardly say: “Here’s your coffee, and what are you doing afterwards?” Perhaps people did say that, but it was not the most sophisticated of approaches and he would not have done that. And for much the same reason, she could hardly have said: “Thanks for the coffee, and what are you doing afterwards?” One did not say that to waiters, whatever the temptation.
    So the fact of the matter was that Domenica