The Second Fiddle

On the whole, Stella preferred the Cottage Dairy Company to the People's Restaurant. It was a shade more expensive, but if you ate less and liked it more, that was your own affair. You were waited on with more arrogance and less speed, but you made up for that artistically by an evasion of visible grossness. Stella had never gone very much further than a ham sandwich in either place. You knew where you were with a ham sandwich, and you could disguise it with mustard. On this occasion she took a cup of tea and made her meal an amalgamation. She hoped to leave work early, and she would have no time for tea. She was going to hear Chaliapine. All London-all the London, that is, which thinks of itself as London-was raving about Chaliapine; but Stella in general neither knew nor cared for the ravings of London. They reached her as vaguely as the sound of breaking surf reaches the denizens of the deeper seas.