"Of course I had to have tea in Miss Bentley's shop," she said.
"Really! Winter would have given you tea."
"Oh yes, but I daren't disappoint Miss Bentley."
Miss Bentley was a sallow old maid with a rather large nose and romantic disposition, who served tea with a careful intensity worthy of a sacrament.
"Did she ask after me?" said Clifford.
"Of course!—May I ask your Ladyship how Sir Clifford is!—I believe she ranks you even higher than Nurse Cavell!"
"And I suppose you said I was blooming."
"Yes! And she looked as rapt as if I had said the heavens had opened to you. I said if she ever came to Tevershall she was to come and see you."
"Me! Whatever for! See me!"
"Why yes, Clifford. You can't be so adored without making some slight return. Saint George of Cappadocia was nothing to you, in her eyes."
"And do you think she'll come?"
"Oh, she blushed! and looked quite beautiful for a moment, poor thing! Why don't men marry the women who would really adore them?"
"The women start adoring too late. But did she say she'd come?"
"Oh!" Connie imitated the breathless Miss Bentley, "your Ladyship, if ever I should dare to presume!"
"Dare to presume! how absurd! But I hope to God she won't turn up. And how was her tea?"
"Oh, Lipton's and very strong! But Clifford, do you realise you are the Roman de la rose of Miss Bentley and lots like her?"
"I'm not flattered, even then."
"They treasure up every one of your pictures in the illustrated papers, and probably pray for you every night. It's rather wonderful."
She went upstairs to change.
That evening he said to her:
"You do think, don't you, that there is something eternal in marriage?"
She looked at him.
"But Clifford, you make eternity sound like a lid or a long, long chain that trailed after one, no matter how far one went."
