“Most people treat tea-making so clumsily,” Stacey remarked. “You make it an art, just as you do with all the other daily things. They acquire distinction. That’s nice.”
“Thanks,” she said idly, “but it’s only that it tastes better if it’s made right, you know.”
“And isn’t that something? Marian,” he added, noting that her fingers were quite bare, “don’t you wear your rings any more?”
She glanced down at her hands. “No,” she said, “I don’t like them. And they slip off.”
“You mustn’t let yourself get so thin,” he returned solicitously.
She gave him a quick hard smile. “Of course not. I must keep myself a handsome objet d’art, mustn’t I? I remember all about the Parthenon, Stacey.”
“No, no!” he answered, discouraged, getting a glimpse of her antagonism, “I didn’t mean that! I only meant that you must stay well. What a rotter you must think me, to take my remark like that! As far as that goes, you’re more beautiful at present than I’ve ever seen you,” he added simply.
But he saw her bite her lip after her pettish outburst, and he felt lost—baffled. To save him, he could not make out what she was after; whether she regretted her spiteful little attack because it was not in line with a carefully prepared program or because she merely wanted to be friendly and hadn’t meant to grow petulant. His mind played restlessly over the whole situation and could make nothing of it.
“Yes, that was rather nasty of me, I admit,” said Marian after a moment.
It was some little time before she could again conquer his wariness, but she did so at last. There is a smooth disarming intimacy about the tea-hour. The ceremony of tea itself is so fine; it is elegant, aloof and gracious; it ministers to taste yet not to appetite; people are not there to chew and be nourished. And then the hour itself is lovable—the sun’s rays growing level, dust in the air turned golden, a hush perceptible even through the city’s noise. Stacey surrendered to the atmosphere of intimacy. He drank the fragrant China tea and talked without restraint of a number of things. Perhaps, he thought, he and Marian might still be friends. He had treated her abominably and was sorry for it now that he understood her better, though she, he admitted, understood him better than he her.