Vestalia noted that he spoke to waiters in a soft, grave tone, with shades of gentle melancholy and of affectionate authority subtly blended in it, which he used to no one else. He produced the impression upon her of being at his very best at a table. She particularly liked him when he took the cork from the butler, and tenderly pinched with thumb and finger as he scrutinised it, and then smiled courteous approbation to the servant. This person wore a chain round his neck, and the bottle he brought was swathed in starched napery—and the girl observed both with the interest that attaches to novelty. But it was even more interesting to see how perfectly her companion presided over everything.
She herself was much less at ease. David noticed that she kept her hands in her lap under the table as much as possible during the meal, and that there was an air of constraint in her general deportment which had been lacking at breakfast. He put it down to her shyness among so many busy people in the thronged apartment, and talked briskly at intervals to re-assure her. Especially he charged himself with the duty of keeping her glass filled, and he was almost peremptory in his tone with her about the grouse. She ate her piece to the end with meek resolution after that.
When they were again in the open, he rallied her upon the diffidence she had displayed. “You mustn’t mind a lot of fellows being about,” he said in a paternal way. “They go where there is the best kitchen, and it’s the part of wisdom to go there too; besides, they’re only too pleased to see a pretty face among them. Didn’t you feel how proud I was of you, all the while?”
Outside she had quite regained her spirits and assurance. She smiled with frank gaiety at him. “I’ll tell you how to be prouder still,” she said. “I know you won’t mind my saying so—but I ought really to have some gloves.”
“I’m a brute not to have thought of it,” Mosscrop reproached himself. “Here’s a place, just at hand. I can come in, this time, I suppose, without question.”
She held up a finger at him, in mock monition. Then, as they turned to enter the shop, she whispered: “I saw that American girl looking with all her eyes at my bare hands.”
“Oh, pshaw—lots of women don’t wear gloves. You mustn’t be so suspicious of everybody that looks your way. A hundred to one they’re thinking about themselves all the time.”
“Ah, but you don’t know women,” she halted midway in the entrance to murmur. “I could read it in her eyes that she’d noticed I had no ring.”
“Well, and there too,” protested Mosscrop, “you exaggerate the importance of the thing. Lots of women don’t wear rings, either—that is, on ordinary occasions.”
She danced her eyes at him in merriment. “Perhaps you didn’t notice that I was supposed to be a married lady,” she said, and then turned abruptly to the counter.