“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she cried. “Look at the great men of your name. John of Gaunt, John Knox, John Bunyan, John Locke, John Stuart Mill——”
“A merry crew of troubadours, aren’t they?” said Baltazar.
Whereat they both laughed, and the situation, as far as it affected her, was relieved. They talked freely of the twenty years of their separation. She of her work, her family; her mother, still alive, looked after by an elder sister, her brothers, both younger than herself, in the Navy. He, of China and his lamentable adventure on the moorland. He found that Godfrey, carrying out his request, had saved him from the abhorred recital of his story. Quong Ho aroused her curiosity and amused interest. She longed to see Quong Ho. Tea was set out in old-fashioned style and she presided at the table. She laughed at the wry face he made over the first sip of the good, strong Ceylon blend. Not the least dismal aspect of the tragedy of Spendale Farm, he explained, was the destruction of the chests of priceless tea which he had brought from China—stuff that yielded liquid and fragrant gold, lingering on the palate like exquisite wine.
“Damn the Huns for robbing me of my tea!” he cried, “besides damning them for a million other devilries. And yet the just man must give even Huns their due. They’ve done one good thing.”
Marcelle flashed a protest. “They haven’t. They’re incapable of it. I’ve been in France, in the thick of it, close up to the Front—and I’ve seen things. I know. They haven’t done one good thing.”
“They have,” said Baltazar. “They’ve brought you and me together.”
“Oh!” said Marcelle rather foolishly. “I thought you were referring to something serious.”
He fastened on the word. “Serious? Do you suppose that your presence here at this minute, with that little bitten-into piece of buttered toast between your finger and thumb, isn’t the most serious fact in my life since I parted from you on the Newnham Road twenty years ago?”
She dropped the bit of toast into her saucer and regarded him with dismayed renewal of her earlier fears.
“Why spoil everything? We were beginning to get along so nicely.”