At a quarter past four in the afternoon, two days after thememorable dinner-party at which Lord Marshmoreton had behaved withso notable a lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, waitingfor Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his telegram that he wouldmeet her there at four-thirty: but eagerness had brought Maud to thetryst a quarter of an hour ahead of time: and already the sadnessof her surroundings was causing her to regret this impulsiveness.
Depression had settled upon her spirit. She was aware of somethingthat resembled foreboding.
Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately suggest to those whoknow their London, is a tea-shop in Bond Street, conducted bydistressed gentlewomen. In London, when a gentlewoman becomesdistressed--which she seems to do on the slightest provocation--shecollects about her two or three other distressed gentlewomen,forming a quorum, and starts a tea-shop in the West-End, which shecalls Ye Oak Leaf, Ye Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or YeSnug Harbour, according to personal taste. There, dressed inTyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian, or some other exotic costume, sheand her associates administer refreshments of an afternoon with aproud languor calculated to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriestcustomer. Here you will find none of the coarse bustle andefficiency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co., nor theglitter and gaiety of Rumpelmayer's. These places have anatmosphere of their own. They rely for their effect on aninsufficiency of light, an almost total lack of ventilation, aproperty chocolate cake which you are not supposed to cut, and thesad aloofness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubtedwhether there is anything in the world more damping to the spiritthan a London tea-shop of this kind, unless it be another Londontea-shop of the same kind.
Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a kettle bubbled in anundertone, like a whispering pessimist. Across the room twodistressed gentlewomen in fancy dress leaned against the wall.
They, too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested that theylooked on life as low and wished they were well out of it, like thebody upstairs. One assumed that there was a body upstairs. Onecannot help it at these places. One's first thought on entering isthat the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a hushed voice"Tea or chocolate? And would you care to view the remains?"Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. She couldscarcely believe that she had only been there five minutes, but theticking of the watch assured her that it had not stopped. Herdepression deepened. Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in acavern of gloom like this instead of at the Savoy? She would haveenjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have lost beyond recoverythe first gay eagerness with which she had set out to meet the manshe loved.
Suddenly she began to feel frightened. Some evil spirit, possiblythe kettle, seemed to whisper to her that she had been foolish incoming here, to cast doubts on what she had hitherto regarded asthe one rock-solid fact in the world, her love for Geoffrey. Couldshe have changed since those days in Wales? Life had been soconfusing of late. In the vividness of recent happenings those daysin Wales seemed a long way off, and she herself different from thegirl of a year ago. She found herself thinking about George Bevan.
It was a curious fact that, the moment she began to think of GeorgeBevan, she felt better. It was as if she had lost her way in awilderness and had met a friend. There was something so capable, sosoothing about George. And how well he had behaved at that lastinterview. George seemed somehow to be part of her life. She couldnot imagine a life in which he had no share. And he was at thismoment, probably, packing to return to America, and she would neversee him again. Something stabbed at her heart. It was as if shewere realizing now for the first time that he was really going.
She tried to rid herself of the ache at her heart by thinking ofWales. She closed her eyes, and found that that helped her toremember. With her eyes shut, she could bring it all back--thatrainy day, the graceful, supple figure that had come to her out ofthe mist, those walks over the hills . . . If only Geoffrey wouldcome! It was the sight of him that she needed.
"There you are!"Maud opened her eyes with a start. The voice had sounded likeGeoffrey's. But it was a stranger who stood by the table. And nota particularly prepossessing stranger. In the dim light of Ye CosyNooke, to which her opening eyes had not yet grown accustomed, allshe could see of the man was that he was remarkably stout. Shestiffened defensively. This was what a girl who sat about intea-rooms alone had to expect.
"Hope I'm not late," said the stranger, sitting down and breathingheavily. "I thought a little exercise would do me good, so Iwalked."Every nerve in Maud's body seemed to come to life simultaneously.
She tingled from head to foot. It was Geoffrey!
He was looking over his shoulder and endeavouring by snapping hisfingers to attract the attention of the nearest distressedgentlewoman; and this gave Maud time to recover from the frightfulshock she had received. Her dizziness left her; and, leaving, wassucceeded by a panic dismay. This couldn't be Geoffrey! It wasoutrageous that it should be Geoffrey! And yet it undeniably wasGeoffrey. For a year she had prayed that Geoffrey might be givenback to her, and the gods had heard her prayer. They had given herback Geoffrey, and with a careless generosity they had given hertwice as much of him as she had expected. She had asked for theslim Apollo whom she had loved in Wales, and this colossalchangeling had arrived in his stead.
We all of us have our prejudices. Maud had a prejudice against fatmen. It may have been the spectacle of her brother Percy, bulgingmore and more every year she had known him, that had caused thiskink in her character. At any rate, it existed, and she gazed insickened silence at Geoffrey. He had turned again now, and she wasenabled to get a full and complete view of him. He was not merelystout. He was gross. The slim figure which had haunted her for ayear had spread into a sea of waistcoat. The keen lines of his facehad disappeared altogether. His cheeks were pink jellies.
One of the distressed gentlewomen had approached with aslow disdain, and was standing by the table, brooding on thecorpse upstairs. It seemed a shame to bother her.
"Tea or chocolate?" she inquired proudly.
"Tea, please," said Maud, finding her voice.
"One tea," sighed the mourner.
"Chocolate for me," said Geoffrey briskly, with the air of onediscoursing on a congenial topic. "I'd like plenty of whippedcream. And please see that it's hot.""One chocolate."Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that occupied him.
"And bring some fancy cakes--I like the ones with icing onthem--and some tea-cake and buttered toast. Please see there'splenty of butter on it."Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in whose lexicon thereshould have been no such word as butter, a man who should havecalled for the police had some enemy endeavoured to thrust butterupon him.
"Well," said Geoffrey leaning forward, as the haughty ministrantdrifted away, "you haven't changed a bit. To look at, I mean.""No?" said Maud.
"You're just the same. I think I"--he squinted down at hiswaistcoat--"have put on a little weight. I don't know if you noticeit?"Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on a little weight, anddidn't know if she had noticed it! She was oppressed by the eternalmelancholy miracle of the fat man who does not realize that he hasbecome fat.
"It was living on the yacht that put me a little out of condition,"said Geoffrey. "I was on the yacht nearly all the time since I sawyou last. The old boy had a Japanese cook and lived pretty high. Itwas apoplexy that got him. We had a great time touring about. Wewere on the Mediterranean all last winter, mostly at Nice.""I should like to go to Nice," said Maud, for something to say. Shewas feeling that it was not only externally that Geoffrey hadchanged. Or had he in reality always been like this, commonplaceand prosaic, and was it merely in her imagination that he had beenwonderful?
"If you ever go," said Geoffrey, earnestly, "don't fail to lunch atthe Hotel Cote d'Azur. They give you the most amazing selection ofhors d'oeuvres you ever saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters! Andthere's a fish--I've forgotten it's name, it'll come back tome--that's just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to have itbroiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the flavour. Tell thewaiter you must have it broiled, with melted butter and a littleparsley and some plain boiled potatoes. It's really astonishing.
It's best to stick to fish on the Continent. People can say whatthey like, but I maintain that the French don't really understandsteaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn't bad, though I preferour way of serving it. Of course, what the French are real geniusesat is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, Iwent ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet withchicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentiousplace near the harbour. I shall always remember it."The mourner returned, bearing a laden tray, from which she removedthe funeral bakemeats and placed them limply on the table. Geoffreyshook his head, annoyed.
"I particularly asked for plenty of butter on my toast!" he said.
"I hate buttered toast if there isn't lots of butter. It isn'tworth eating. Get me a couple of pats, will you, and I'll spread itmyself. Do hurry, please, before the toast gets cold. It's no goodif the toast gets cold. They don't understand tea as a meal atthese places," he said to Maud, as the mourner withdrew. "You haveto go to the country to appreciate the real thing. I remember welay off Lyme Regis down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I wentand had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amazing! ThickDevonshire cream and home-made jam and cakes of every kind. Thissort of thing here is just a farce. I do wish that woman wouldmake haste with that butter. It'll be too late in a minute."Maud sipped her tea in silence. Her heart was like lead within her.
The recurrence of the butter theme as a sort of leit motif in hercompanion's conversation was fraying her nerves till she felt shecould............