Eating Habit and Hazards
....
The Luncheon
William Somerset Maugham
.............................................................................
..
I caught sight of her at the play, and in answer to her beckoning, I went over during interval and sat down beside her. It was long since I had last seen her, and if someone had not mentioned her name I hardly think I would have recognized her.
.
She addressed me highly .
.
"Well, it's many years since we first meet. How times does fly! We're none of us getting any younger. Do you remember the first meet I saw you? You asked me to the luncheon.
.
Did I remember?
.
It  was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I had a tiny apartment in the Latin quarter overlooking a cemetery, and I was earning barely enough money to keep body and soul together. She had read a book of mine and had written to me about it. I answered , thanking her , and presently I received from her another letter saying that she was passing through Paris and would like to have chat with me ; but her time was limited , and the only free moment , at the luxembourg and would I give her little luncheon  at Foyot's  afterward's Foyot's is a restaurant at which the french senators eat , and it was so far beyond my means that I had never even thought of going there. But I was flattered, and i was to young to have learned to say not o a woman.......