Mrs. Jefferson gave him a quiet glance and he began to move some plates. Betty did not look up, but Kit thought she was not at all embarrassed.
"I forgot about the ayutante's comida. In fact——" he said, and stopped. It was strange, but he had forgotten he had meant to go to Mrs. Austin's.
"Give me the hot plates," said Mrs. Jefferson, and when Jefferson did so one slipped and rattled.
"Perhaps it's lucky my touch is not light," he remarked. "If it had been lighter, I'd have broken some crockery."
Kit imagined there was a joke, but since the joke was not obvious he studied Betty. She now wore a thin black dress, made in the Spanish fashion with black lace at the short sleeves and neck. Her skin was very white and smooth and Kit thought she looked as if she had always worn a dinner dress.
The room was spacious. Mrs. Jefferson's china and silver were good. A bowl of splendid roses occupied the middle of the table, and although they had no smell, the little tierra roses, half hidden by the others, were seductively sweet. Decanters of red and yellow wine shone among coloured fruit, and in front of Betty a cluster of white Muscatel grapes glimmered against dark vine leaves.
One got a hint of taste and cultivation, and Kit remembered that for a time after his arrival he had felt raw and awkward at houses like his host's. At Liverpool Betty had worn rather shabby clothes, and often when he met her going home from the office her boots were wet and muddy. Now she looked as if she belonged to Mrs. Jefferson's circle. Kit did not know if this was strange or not; he began to think he had not really known Betty.
All the same, he was conscious of keen satisfaction. Betty had fronted poverty and smiled, but her smile was no longer forced. She had escaped, like Cinderella, from dreary servitude, and Kit was very glad, although he doubted if his analogy were good. Cinderella was splendidly conspicuous when she went to the ball, but Betty was not. Her charm was her gracious quietness; she did not stand out from her background, she harmonised with it. Kit thought her like the Muscatels that glimmered with pearly tints among the leaves.
"I guess you are thinking about Wolf's cargo," Jefferson remarked.
"Not at all," said Kit. "I was thinking about Liverpool. And Muscatel grapes."