He ordered beefsteak and fried
potatoes, coffee and apple pie.
"Sit still!" he said to her roughly and rose to go out to buy a paper.
The girl sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes upon them.
She looked utterly, pitifully tired. A moment and he came back
to resume his seat and read the paper. When the waiter flopped
down the steak and the dish of greasily fried potatoes before
his plate, he stuffed the paper in his pocket, cut a slice of
the steak and put it on the plate. The waiter noisily exchanged
it for the empty plate before Susan. Warham cut two slices of
the steak for himself, took a liberal helping of the potatoes,
pushed the dish toward her.
"Do you want the coffee now, or with the pie?" asked the waiter.
"Now," said Warham.
"Coffee for the young lady, too?"
Warham scowled at her. "Coffee?" he demanded.
She did not answer; she did not hear.
"Yes, she wants coffee," said Warham. "Hustle it!"
"Yes, sir." And the waiter bustled away with a great deal of
motion that created a deceptive impression of speed. Warham was
helping himself to steak again when the coffee came a
suspicious-looking liquid diffusing an odor of staleness
reheated again and again, an under odor of metal pot not too
frequently scoured.
Warham glanced at Susan's plate. She had not disturbed the knife
and fork on either side of it. "Eat!" he commanded. And when she
gave no sign of having heard, he repeatedly sharply, "Eat, I
tell you.
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