Mrs. Budd’s country house was thrown together with the directness, the inconsequence, and the charming frankness of the lady herself. There were no corners, no intricacies of passage, no glooms. One step from the veranda and you were in the midst of it. You were entirely surrounded by the open stairs to the chambers, the double drawing-rooms on the left, the dining-room and library on the right, with the “glass room” giving on the garden behind it. You saw them all at a glance, and saw them in an even flood of light from the lightly curtained, large, plain windows.
From the living-hall Florence saw, through the double doors, a triangular vista of the breakfast-room. The table, drawn squarely in front of the open French windows, was dappled with sun. She got an impression of colors and motions, and the automatic movement to and fro of the starched white blouse of the Chinese butler.
She distinguished but two faces, Julia’s and Longacre’s. They were fronting the door, back to the full flood of sun, and again she saw them together, as though detached from the people around them. Julia was talking, but more aware of whom she talked to than what she said. Longacre seemed hardly to listen. He kept looking at her.
Florence felt again a tightening throat. She got a long breath. She realized that Mrs. Budd had suspended her flow of conversation with Holden, and had fixed on her a smile of absent welcome. She indicated the vacant place at Holden’s right, and hurried an inquiry of how her guest had slept into a breathless demand as to how she preferred her coffee.
Florence found herself fronting Longacre, who was pent between Cissy Fitz Hugh’s pettish prettiness and Julia’s accented gaiety. He looked up at Florence as if he had come out of a dream. His eyes met hers across the table, whimsically asking: Wasn’t it, after all, just the jolliest, stupidest possible lark? But she did not answer the look. She wouldn’t. The smile that she did give him was a mere good morning, the same as she had given Holden when he drew back her chair for her. Her whole attention seemed for Thair, who had immediately turned on her the genial impudence of his odd, light eyes that seemed to see consummately through half-closed lids.
“You are truly the most extraordinary person,” he was saying. “One sees you in the first flush of day half a mile on the road to the sea. And presently you come in, straight from the fountain of youth, and remember immediately how many lumps you take in your coffee.”
“And you—” She just hesitated. She saw Longacre still looking at her—“are too delightfully naïve!” Her eyes returned to Thair’s mocking face. “It’s not a medicine one permits one’s self before breakfast.”
He laughed with whetted interest.
“What will you have? I am all at your commands.”
“Mercy, Charlie,” Cissy cut in, “I should think you’d know all any one expects of you is to be amusing!” She glanced maliciously at Mrs. Budd.