Confronted by a tea-tray and a Britisher in combination, Nancy Howard was conscious of a certain abashment. At home in New York, she was accustomed to administer informal tea by means of a silver ball and a spirit lamp. These two diminutive pots, the one of water and the other of tea, left her in a blissful state of uncertainty whether she was to measure them out, half and half, or, emptying the teapot at the first round, fill it up with the water in the hopes of decocting a feeble second cup. Moreover, Nancy preferred lemon in her tea, and, worst of all, there were no sugar tongs. Nancy wondered vaguely whether Englishwomen were wont to make tea in brand-new gloves, or whether Englishmen were less finical than their transatlantic brethren.
Barth, his glasses on his nose, watched her intently. His very intentness increased her abashment. It had been at his suggestion that they had gone to the little tea shop, that afternoon, and Nancy had no wish to bring disgrace either upon Barth or herself, in the presence of those of Quebec’s fair daughters who, at the tables around them, were sipping tea and gossip by turns.
Devoutly praying that she might not upset the cream jug, nor forget to call the sugarbowl a basin, Nancy at last succeeded in filling Barth’s cup.
“How scriptural!” he observed, as he took it from her hand.
“In what way?”
He pointed to the pale ring of overflow in the saucer.
“It runneth over,” he quoted gravely.
Nancy developed a literal turn of mind. She did it now and then; it was always unexpected, and it left her companion of the moment in the conversational lurch.
“That means happiness, not tea,” she said calmly.
Barth looked at her inquiringly. Then, with unwonted swiftness, he rallied.
“Sometimes the two are synonymous,” he said quietly.
But Nancy turned wayward.
“Not when they are watered down. But you must admit that Americans give good measure.”
Barth smiled across the table at her, in manifest content.
“Of both,” he asserted, as he stirred his tea.
“Have a biscuit,” Nancy advised him suddenly.
“A—Would you like me to order some? I dare say they have them out there.”
Nancy rested her elbows on the table with a protesting bump.
“There you go Britishing me again!” she said hotly. “You said you wouldn’t do it. Even if I am an American, I do know enough not to say cracker. That was one of the few lessons I learned at my mother’s knee. But there aren’t any cracker-biscuits here. I was referring to these others.”
Barth glanced anxiously about the table. Aside from the tray, there were two plates upon the table, and one of the two held tiny strips of toasted bread. All told, there were exactly eight of the strips, each amounting to a mouthful and a half, and Nancy had just been out at the Cove Fields, playing golf.
Nancy pointed to the other plate.
“I mean those—biscuits,” she said conclusively and with emphasis.
“Those? Oh. But those aren’t biscuits.”
“What do you call them, then? Buns?” Nancy inquired, with scathing curiosity.
“Buns? Oh, no. Those are scones.”
This time, Nancy fairly bounced in her chair.
“They are nothing in this world but common, every-day American soda biscuits,” she said, as she helped herself to the puffiest and the brownest. “You are in America now, Mr. Barth, and there is no sense in your putting British names to our cooking. Will you have a biscuit?”
“Oh, yes. But really, you know, they are scones,” he protested. “My mother nearly always has them.”
Nancy cast anxious eyes at the drop of molten butter that was trickling along the base of her thumb.
“And so do we,” she replied firmly; “only we eat them at breakfast, with a napkin. I don’t mean that we actually eat the napkin,” she explained hastily, in mercy for the limitations of her companion’s understanding. “But, really, these are very buttery.”
Barth sucked his forefinger with evident relish.
“Oh, rather!” he assented. “That’s what makes them so good.”
Nancy furtively rescued her handkerchief from her temporary substitute for a pocket. Then, bending forward, she arranged four of the strips of toast around the margin of her saucer.
“What’s that for?” Barth queried, at a loss to know whether the act was another Americanism, or merely a Nancyism pure and simple.
“We are going to go halves on our rations,” Nancy answered coolly. “I am just as hungry as you are, and I don’t propose to have you eating more than your share of things.”
“Would you like to have me order some more scones?” he asked courteously.
For the space of a full minute, Nancy bestowed her entire attention upon her teacup. Then she lifted the white of one eye to Barth’s questioning face.
“Oh, rather!” she responded nonchalantly.
At the tables around them, Quebec’s fair daughters paused in their tea and their gossip to cast a questioning glance in the direction of Barth’s mirth. As a rule, masculine mirth had scant place in the cosy little tea shop. In summer, it was visited by a procession of American tourists who imbibed its tea in much the same solemn spirit as they breathed the incense of the Basilica, inhaled the crisp breeze over Cape Diamond and tasted the vigorous brew that ripened in the vaults of the old intendant’s palace. When the tourists had betaken themselves southward and Quebec once more began to resume its customary life, the shop became a purely feminine function. It was an ideal place for a dish of gossip in the autumnal twilight. The walls hung thick with ancient plates and mirrors, venerable teapots and jugs stood in serried ranks along the shelf about the top of the room, and a quaint assortment of rugs nearly covered the floor. Here and there about the wide room were scattered little claw-footed tables whose shiny tops were covered with squares of homespun linen, brown and soft as a bit of Indian pongee. Not even the blazing electric lights could give an air of modernness to the place, and Nancy, in the intervals of her struggles with the tray, looked about her with complete content.
Barth possessed certain of the attributes of a successful general. Wide experience had taught him to administer fees freely and, as a rule, with exceeding discretion. As a result, he and Nancy were in possession of the most desirable table in the room, close beside the deep casement overlooking Saint Louis Street. Nancy, the light falling full on her eager face, over her radiant hair and on her dark cloth gown, could watch at her will the loitering passers in the street beneath, or the idle groups at the tables around her. Barth, his own face in shadow, could see but one thing. That one thing, however, was quite enough, for it was Nancy.
More than a week had p............