"There is a sweet little green-and-white place like a dairy in Oxford Street, that calls itself the 'Hyacinth,' which is sacred to ladies and to gentlemen properly chaperoned.

If you would invite me to dine with you there I should like it very much." "Anywhere," he said.

He accepted her proposal to dine at the "Hyacinth" with the same unquestioning pleasure which he would have had in accepting her proposal to dine at the top of the Monument that evening; but he felt an under perplexity at its terms, which was vaguely disturbing.
How could it possibly matter?
Did she suppose that she advanced palpably nearer to the proprieties in dining with him in one place rather than the other?
There was an unreasonableness about that which irritated him.
He felt it more distinctly when she proposed taking an omnibus instead of the cab he had signalled.

"Oh, of course, if you prefer it," he said; and there was almost a trace of injured feeling in his voice.

It was so much easier to talk in a cab.
He lost his apprehensions presently, for it became obvious to him that this was only a mood, coming, as he said to himself devoutly, from the Lord knew what combination of circumstances--he would think that out afterward--but making Elfrida none the less agreeable while it lasted.
Under its influence she kept away from all the matters she was fondest of discussing with that extraordinary candor and startling equity of hers, and talked to him with a pretty cleverness, about commonplaces of sorts arising out of the day's news, the shops, the weather.
She treated them all with a gaiety that made her face a fascinating study while she talked, and pointed them, as it were, with all the little poises and expressions and reserves which are commonly a feminine result of considerable social training.