And the spring had brought the people out into the gardens, the quiet orderly English people. It was the first stirring of the blood. It had stirred them to come out in couples, in family parties, in tight matronly black dresses, in drab coats and trousers in dowdy skirts and hats. It had stirred some to come in elegant costumes and morning suits and spats. They looked at the flaunting tropical trees, and made jokes, and chaffed one another, and laughed not very loud. They were happy in their quiet orderly English way, happy in the warmth of the sunshine, happy to be among quiet trees, and to feel the soft grass under their feet. They did not run about or shout, they walked slowly, quietly, taking care to keep off the edges of the grass because the notices told them to do so.
It was very warm, very pleasant, and very tiring. I wandered cut at last through the big gates, and was waved by a man with a napkin—he stood on the pavement—through a Georgian house into a garden studded with white topped tables and dirty ricketty chairs. It was crowded with people, and I sat down at the only vacant table, and watched them eating plum-cake and drinking tea quietly, soberly, under the gentle apple-blossom.
A man came up the garden looking quickly from side to side for an empty place. I watched him in a tired lazy way. There was a bustle and roll and energy in his walk. I noticed the thickness of his legs above the knee, the arms that hung so loosely and limply by his sides as they do with people who wear loose hanging clothes without sleeves, his dark fat face and the sensual mouth, the great curve of the upper lip and the hanging lower one. A clever face, dark and inscrutable, with its large mysterious eyes and the heavy lids which went into deep folds at the corners.
He stopped near my table, looked at the empty chair and then at me, and said:
"Excuse me, Sir, but d'you mind my sitting at your table?"
I noticed the slight thickness of the voice, the overemphasis, and the little note of assertiveness in it. I said I didn't mind at all.
He sat down, leaned back in his chair, and took his hat off. He had a high forehead, black hair, and well-shaped fat hands.
"Fine day," he said, "wonderfully fine day, the finest day I ever remember. Nothing to beat a fine English spring day."
I saw the delicate apple-blossom and the pale blue sky behind his large dark head. I smiled. He saw the smile, flushed, and then smiled himself.
"You are amused," he said, still smiling, "I believe I know why."