He hesitated.
“Well, certainly extremes of goodness, or happiness, or anything of that kind. When one comes to think of it seriously, happiness is really absurd, is it not? Just consider how preposterous what is called a happy face always looks, covered with those dreadful, wrinkled things named smiles, all the teeth showing, and so on. I know you agree with me. Happiness drives all thought out of a face, and distorts the features in a most painful manner. When I go out walking on a Bank Holiday, a thing I seldom do, I always think a cheerful expression the most degrading of all expressions. A contented clerk disfigures a whole street—really.”
Miss Haddon's appearance had gradually grown very sombre during this speech, and she did not brighten up on the approach of tea and muffins on a wicker table whimsical with little shelves.
“Perhaps you are right,” she said. “I daresay happiness is unreasonable. Ought I to sit on the floor too?”
Claude deprecated such an act on the part of his hostess. Sitting on the floor was one of his pet originalities, and he hated rivalry. Besides, Miss Haddon was distinctly too stout for that sort of thing.
“I do it because I feel so Turkish,” he explained. “Otherwise, it would be an assumption, and not naïve. People make a great mistake in fancying the decadent is unnatural. If anything, he is too natural. He follows his whim. The world only calls us natural when we do everything we dislike. If Rossetti had played football every Saturday, his poetry would have been much more read in England than it has been. Yes, please, I will have another muffin.”
“But I think I feel Turkish too,” Miss Haddon said calmly. “Yes, I am sure I do. I ought not to resist it; ought I? Otherwise I shall be flying in the face of your beautiful theories.” And she squatted down on the floor at his elbow.
Claude had a wonderful purple moment of acute irritation, during which he felt strangely natural. Miss Haddon did not appear to notice it. She went on bombarding him with questions in a cheery manner until he began to be rather ill, but her face never lost its expression of grave sadness, a strange, inexplicable melancholy that was not in the least Bank Holiday. The contrast between her expression and her voice worried Claude, as an intelligent pantaloon might worry a clown. He felt that something was wrong. Either face or voice required alteration. And then questions are like death—extremely irksome. Besides, he found it difficult to answer many of them, difficult to define precisely the position of the decadent, his intentions and his aims. It was no use to tell Miss Haddon that he didn't possess either the one or the other. Always with the same definitely sad face, the same definitely cheerful voice, she declined to believe him. He fidgeted on his cushion, and his Turkish placidity threatened to be seriously disturbed.
The appearance of the absinthe created a diversion. Claude arranged a glass of it, much diluted with water, for the benefit of his hostess, and she began to sip it with an air of determined reverence.