AESTHETICS AND SOME TEA
Æsthetics and Some Tea
Why anyone should invite us to an æsthetic tea is one of those insoluble mysteries which Heaven alone can penetrate—supposing that Heaven would so far condescend as to notice the matter at all. We are not æsthetic, and we don't care a darn about tea.
What's more, we hate dressing up for it. There might be some sense in dressing up for a case of beer or a couple of bottles of Scotch. But why people should get into afternoon gowns and morning-coats for tea and postage-stamp sandwiches—well, it beats us, dear reader, it beats us.
Of course, nothing was stated in the invitation about it being an æsthetic tea. But we were asked to meet Mrs. De Frizac-Jones, and we knew what that meant. The reader may not know Mrs. De Frizac-Jones—at least, not by that name—but she is a very real person. She is the arch-priestess of the higher cultchaw in our town. And she makes it pay—about five thousand a year and unlimited kudos! But more of her anon.
So we shook the camphor out of our morning-coat, and put a little indelible ink on the places where the lining showed through the more recent moth-holes in the vest. We sewed a button or two on our striped trousers, took a spot off one leg, rectified the line of our shirt-bosom and cuffs by clipping the feathers off the edges, read a couple of chapters of a book of etiquette—all about leaving your hat and stick in the hall without fear, and making a bright, spontaneous remark to your hostess on entering and leaving (a different remark each time, we presume)—and we felt prepared for the massed attacks of the enemy, including gas.
When we arrived there was already a goodly company assembled—thirty-seven ladies and three men. The ladies were bubbling over with unsuppressed excitement, and the air was filled with extremely cultured badinage involving the frequent mention of Mæterlinck and Mrs. Inez Haynes Gilmore. The three men didn't seem excited. They weren't saying a word. Till we were introduced to them, we thought they were the hired help.
The expression of intense eagerness with which every lady's face was turned to the door as we stepped in, caused a flush of pride and modest confusion to mantle our Grecian features. Not that we are entirely unused to such manifestations of feminine approval—but thirty-seven all at once!
When they saw it was only us—that is, when they saw it was only we—O Lord, we mean when they saw who it was, thirty-six of the ladies turned around again and began talking to the nearest person in loud, casual tones, with a unanimity that we can only describe as unpleasantly marked. The thirty-seventh was our hostess. She, poor woman, had to look at us, and she came forward with a wan smile and her hand stretched out.
"Oh, I'm so glad you have come," she assured us without conviction. "You will adore Mrs. De Frizac-Jones—her influence makes so powerfully for sweetness and light, as dear Matthew Arnold would say. And you newspapermen—you are so dreadfully cynical, so tout à fait cynique! She will be here any moment now. We are all longing for her. She is wonderful—so psychic, you know."