“You’ll be wanting tea?” asked the woman.
He was a rum one, this one was, but even rum ones took tea.
“The next train’s 5.56, isn’t it?” replied the man.
She told him that it was. She had told him the same thing three times already. Then she repeated her question about tea.
“Eh? Yes, I’ll have some tea,” he replied, without interest.
“What would you like with it? Just bread and butter? Or we’ve got some nice seed cake.”
“Anything. Yes. Whatever you’ve got.”
The woman evaporated, and appeared ten minutes later with a tray. She placed the tray on a sideboard, covered a stained table with a scarcely less stained cloth, and moved the tray to the table. The seed cake presided with dejected majesty on a tall, glass-pedestaled dish. Its mission appeared to be to make thick slices of bread and butter look appetising by comparison.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the woman, lingering. “But will you be staying the night?”
“What?” replied the man.
“Will you be staying the night?” repeated the woman. “If so, I could have your bag taken up—”
“Don’t touch my bag!” cried the man, interested at last. (“You’d have thought some one had trod on his toe,” the woman recounted later.) Then the man added: “I’m not sure. Yes, perhaps. I’ll let you know presently.”
The bag, a black one, was on a chair. When the woman had gone, the man went to it, opened it, looked inside, closed it, locked it, and moved it, for no reason that he could have explained, to another chair. Then he returned to the table and began his tea.
From the bar across the passage came suddenly the sound of raucous music. Some one had put a penny in a grotesque piece of machinery, and was receiving his money’s worth. The man plugged his ears with his fingers and glared at his teacup while the music ground on. After a minute he removed his fingers, then hastily shoved them back again. His forehead throbbed. His head seemed on the point of bursting. A poor man’s pleasure was filling his heart with hate.
“God above!” he shouted.
But nobody heard him. The music across the passage was even louder.
When at last the music ended, he found himself laughing. He did not remember beginning to laugh. He stopped abruptly.
“This won’t do,” he muttered. “This won’t do.”
He finished his tea quietly and returned to the window.
Chapter IV. Over the Yellow Cups
The teacups at the Black Stag were thick and white. At Bragley Court they were thin and yellow, and they began their clinking in the drawing-room, a long, lofty room of pink and cream, and then followed the guests to their various locations. If you disliked pink and cream and a preponderance of elderly feminine society, you stayed away from the official headquarters, confident that the yellow cups would find out where you were and come to you. Mohammed, at Bragley Court, would not have been put to the trouble of going to his mountain.
John’s cup came to him at exactly five o’clock, on a brightly-polished mahogany tray. It was brought and deposited on a small, low table by the pretty maid, and John watched her with interest to discover whether she still bore any traces of her recent agitation. Outwardly, she was now quite calm again, and because of her pleasant friendly quality he hoped that her appearance reflected the truth.
“Is your foot better, sir?” she asked.
“I am sure this interest is unconstitutional,” thought John, “but it’s nice.” So he did not discourage it. He told her that his foot was very much better. The lie did not impress itself on him at the moment.
A cushion had fallen to the ground. The maid picked it up and fixed it behind his head with a bright smile. Then she put another log on the crackling fire and departed.
It was a small, trivial incident, but later on, among a collection of incidents less trivial, John remembered it.
He was staring at the fire, watching the flames crackle upwards towards the chimney, when a voice said:
“Well, how are you getting along? Do you want some one to pour out your tea?”
He did not have to turn his head. Even if he had not recognised Nadine’s voice he would have sensed her personality in the faint silky rustle of her approach and the less faint aroma of expensive perfume. She disturbed the air as she drew near, breaking it up into little emotional ripples.
“Hallo,” he answered. “I’m all right. And thank you.”
“I could have my tea here with you,” she suggested, having already made up her mind not to have it anywhere else. “Shall I?”
“I’d love it,” replied John. “Only I feel I’m upsetting things terribly. You ought to be with the other guests, oughtn’t you?”
“Why? There are no oughts here. We do as we like. Haven’t you noticed it?”
“I’ve noticed they don’t worry you much.”
“Of course you have. The house is run on lines of the most highly-organised freedom. You may flirt desperately or read the Encyclopædia Britannica. Just follow your mood. No one will interfere with you, or display any vulgar curiosity. Even a man with a bad foot isn’t pestered with attention. But you can be quite sure the name of Foss has been looked up in Debrett.” He laughed. “Is it to be found there?”
“I’ve an uncle who fills a dozen dry lines.”
“Lord Aveling won’t find the lines dry!” smiled Nadine, sitting on the low stool lately occupied by Harold Taverley. For the first time he took in her rather daring tea-gown, with its provocative glimpses. It was a compliment that she should waste all this wealth of subtle femininity on him. Or was she wasting it? “Debrett and the old school tie will chain you here for the week-end, however your foot progresses! Lord Aveling can’t run a country—though he wishes he could—but he can run a country house, and he lives for these house-parties, you know. The little thrill of them—the little notoriety of them—the little excitement of them—and the little things that happen in them. And, sometimes, quite big things.”
A desire swept through John to ask, “And what do you live for?” But he quelled the impulse, and asked instead:
“Are any big things going to happen this week-end?”
She regarded him quizzically for a few moments, then replied, “I shouldn’t wonder.”
She turned and nodded to the pretty maid, who had reappeared with another highly-polished little tray gleaming with yellow china. The second tray was deposited beside the first tray. As the maid departed, Nadine’s eyes followed her.
“Pretty, isn’t she?” said Nadine.
“Very,”