Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/155

Rh "I want some more tea: will you give me some more? I feel quite faint. You don't seem to suspect how that sort of thing takes it out of you."

Sherringham apologized, extravagantly, for not having seen that she had the proper quantity of refreshment, and took her to the round table, in a corner, on which the little collation had been served. He poured out tea for her and pressed bread-and-butter on her, and petits fours, of all which she profusely and methodically partook. It was late; the afternoon had faded and a lamp had been brought in, the wide shade of which shed a fair glow upon the tea-service, the little plates of comestibles. The Lovicks sat with Mrs. Rooth at the other end of the room, and the girl stood at the table drinking her tea and eating her bread-and-butter. She consumed these articles so freely that he wondered if she had been in serious want of food—if they were so poor as to have to count with that sort of privation. This supposition was softening, but still not so much so as to make him ask her to sit down. She appeared indeed to prefer to stand: she looked better so, as if the freedom, the conspicuity of being on her feet and treading a stage were agreeable to her. While Sherringham lingered near her, vaguely, with his hands in his pockets, not knowing exactly what to say and instinctively avoiding, now, the theatrical question (there were moments when he was plentifully tired of it), she broke out, abruptly: "Confess that you think me intolerably bad!"

"Intolerably—no."

"Only tolerably! I think that's worse."

"Every now and then you do something very clever," Sherringham said.