Since he had never met the last guy, this approbation was kind of like having an Oracle open his mouth to let the voice of God approve my choice of fiancé. “Thanks, so do I.”

“Although”—the Oracle cocked his head—“he’s not really my type, frankly.”

Then again, Delphi was always getting the Greeks into trouble. “That’s all right, he’s mine.”

He eyed me, head still cocked. “You sure you don’t want that room for the night?”

“Really, we live only four Métro stops from here. Twenty minutes on foot.”

His look said that was a poor excuse.

“Could I order a glass of wine?” Sébastien asked, returning. Wine seemed a request Marcel would enjoy handling.

“You haven’t finished your champagne yet!” Marcel pointed out indignantly.

“But if we’re going to eat,” Sébastien coaxed, “we’ll need wine. Would you want us to drink champagne with a meal?”

“Fine.” Marcel puffed air into his lower lip, in one of the many variants of the French considering-the-options expression. “What kind did you want?”

“This red you recommend looks good.”

“Good choice.” Marcel wandered back to the bar, picked up the half-full bottle that had been sitting on our table when we arrived, and wandered back with it. “Just help yourself from this.”

Well. There was no technical reason we couldn’t get our glass of wine from an unfinished bottle abandoned on a table, since it wasn’t as if the diners would have spat in it. We might have objected when he charged us the full price for the bottle later, but since our meal still didn’t come up to the value of the champagne we had just drunk, what could we say?

We were not the only ones to receive such liquorous generosity. I had been wondering for some time what the non-French-speaking English couple the next table over was making of this. Apparently one thing they had made out of it was that they were ready to leave. Pursuant to this goal, the Englishman approached the bar to wrestle a bill out of the owner.

Marcel beckoned him behind the bar and handed him an unopened bottle of vintage wine. The poor Englishman took it with an expression of half-credulous pleasure. “For me?”

“Non, non, non!” Marcel waved his hands. “For them!” He gestured to two women sitting at a far table.

The Englishman stared at him, baffled, a reaction Marcel blamed on the language barrier. Abandoning words, he went into an elaborate and half-mocking mime, full of good-humored contempt for inferior English wait skills. He pressed a corkscrew into the Englishman’s hand—hard, to make sure the silly Brit didn’t drop it. He dramatically gestured opening the bottle, elbows waggling. He gestured pouring the bottle, with exaggerated care. Then he clapped the Englishman on the back, turned him, and pushed him toward the table.