Goddard went away, after paying his first visit to Lady Phayre, with a wondering mind. His original intention had been to make it as short as he possibly could: he had remained nearly a couple of hours. He could scarcely believe his watch.
The delicate play of mind of a pretty and highly cultured woman was a novelty as rare to him as the bubbling of champagne in his apprentice days. He had gone expecting to endure the inane small-talk which his second-hand experience persuaded him was the inevitable adjunct of a lady’s tea-table; he had found conversation upon all the subjects dear to him invested with a charm such as he had never before imagined. Talk on social questions had ever been with him a deeply serious matter. Lady Phayre had brought into it an unknown lightness, a sparkle, a mental keenness, against which his own intellect sharpened itself, and at the same time a bewildering waywardness that never allowed him to forget she was a woman. In short, Lady Phayre was a revelation. He walked along with a buoyant step, like a man who has made a new discovery that promises to change the old order of things.
After a short interval a pretext arose for repeating the visit. He was careful to magnify its importance for the sake of self-justification. But on the third occasion he owned to himself that he had called out of sheer desire for Lady Phayre’s society.
As he stood, hat in hand, in the drawing-room waiting for her, he had a feeling of misgiving curiously like that of a boy who is fearful lest he is taking too great advantage of a kindly neighbour’s invitation to visit his fruit garden. Her smile of welcome, however, as she entered, reassured him.
“How good of you to come. I had a bit of a headache, and was beginning to mope by myself.”
“I too felt as if it would do me good to have a talk with you,” said Goddard, seating himself.
“Surely you don’t mope?” said Lady Phayre, lifting her eyebrows.
“O Lord, no!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “I have too much to do.”
“I wish I were a man,” sighed Lady Phayre.
“I don’t,” said Goddard. “If you were, I don’t think I should have wanted so much to come and see you.”
“Well, how am I to do you good? Will tea comfort you?”
“I think it would,” replied Goddard, smiling--“out of your gossamer tea-cups, and with imperceptible films of bread and butter. They seem outside of the uses of the weary, work-a-day world.”