And he sat down facing her and watched her pour out her tea and help herself with her little delicate hands. If he had been a common man, a peasant, his idea of courtesy would have been to leave her to herself, to turn away his eyes from her in that intimate and sacred act of eating and drinking. But Greatorex was a farmer, the descendant of yeomen, and by courtesy a yeoman still, and courtesy bade him watch and see that his guest wanted for nothing.
That he did not sit down at the little table and drink tea with her himself showed that his courtesy knew where to draw the dividing line.
"But why aren't you having anything yourself?" said Alice. She really wondered.
He smiled. "It's a bit too early for me, thank yo'. Maaggie'll mak' me a coop by and bye."
And she said to herself, "How beautifully he did it."
He was indeed doing it beautifully all through. He watched her little fingers, and the very instant they had disposed of a morsel he offered her another. It was a deep and exquisite pleasure to him to observe her in that act of eating and drinking. He had never seen anything like the prettiness, the dainty precision that she brought to it. He had never seen anything so pretty as Ally herself, in the rough gray tweed that exaggerated her fineness and fragility; never anything so distracting and at the same time so heartrending as the gray muff and collar of squirrel fur, and the little gray fur hat with the bit of blue peacock's breast laid on one side of it like a folded wing.
As he watched her he thought, "If I was to touch her I should break her."
* * * * *
Then the conversation began.
"I was sorry," he said, "to hear yo was so poorly, Miss Cartaret."