Just before Anthony passed out of the tea-room, after giving his flowers to Sarah, two stout countrywomen with children came in; people who had arrived by train, with the dust of travel in their throats, and to whom a cup of tea never came amiss at any time. Jenny made them comfortable in soft chairs, and gave them a pot and a pile of scones; then she came back to Sarah's table, and, kneeling down, encircled the lilies of the valley with her arms. She inhaled deep breaths of perfume, and gave them forth in long sighs, with her eyes shut. Sarah watched her.
"They are the very dearest flowers you can buy," she remarked. "And I know they are bought, because of the wires on the stalks."
Jenny opened her eyes and gloated on them. "You have seven, Sally," she said wistfully. "You might give me one."
"For the matter of that, they are more yours than mine," said Sarah. "But take all you like."
Jenny took one green stalk in her fingers, and, walking to the fireplace, over which their old family pier-glass, its gilt frame swathed in Liberty muslin, afforded customers the opportunity of seeing that their bonnets were on straight, pinned the fragrant morsel at her throat. The white bells lay under her chin, and she was looking down her nose and sniffing at them all day.
Anthony came for tea at five o'clock, and saw them there, and, one minute after, saw them not there. On that occasion he had no conversation with the wearer, but talked for twenty minutes with her sister, becoming very confidential. On the following day he came also, bringing violets and English primroses in a little basket from the Toorak garden; having given Maude to understand that they were for the adornment of his own rooms. On the day after that he came again; and Mrs. Oxenham, whom he had imagined to be paying calls with her stepmother, came at the same hour and caught him. He was comfortably taking his tea at Sarah's table, when he was suddenly made to feel like a little schoolboy playing the truant.
Mary beckoned him to her, and took him to task forthwith.
"My dear boy, what are you doing here?"
"Having tea and scones. It's what everybody does who comes here."
"But you have not brought any one?"