At a quarter past four in the afternoon, two days after thememorable dinner-party at which Lord Marshmoreton had behaved withso notable a lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, waitingfor Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his telegram that he wouldmeet her there at four-thirty: but eagerness had brought Maud to thetryst a quarter of an hour ahead of time: and already the sadnessof her surroundings was causing her to regret this impulsiveness.

　　Depression had settled upon her spirit. She was aware of somethingthat resembled foreboding.

　　Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately suggest to those whoknow their London, is a tea-shop in Bond Street, conducted bydistressed gentlewomen. In London, when a gentlewoman becomesdistressed--which she seems to do on the slightest provocation--shecollects about her two or three other distressed gentlewomen,forming a quorum, and starts a tea-shop in the West-End, which shecalls Ye Oak Leaf, Ye Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or YeSnug Harbour, according to personal taste. There, dressed inTyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian, or some other exotic costume, sheand her associates administer refreshments of an afternoon with aproud languor calculated to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriestcustomer. Here you will find none of the coarse bustle andefficiency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co., nor theglitter and gaiety of Rumpelmayer's. These places have anatmosphere of their own. They rely for their effect on aninsufficiency of light, an almost total lack of ventilation, aproperty chocolate cake which you are not supposed to cut, and thesad aloofness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubtedwhether there is anything in the world more damping to the spiritthan a London tea-shop of this kind, unless it be another Londontea-shop of the same kind.

　　Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a kettle bubbled in anundertone, like a whispering pessimist. Across the room twodistressed gentlewomen in fancy dress leaned against the wall.

　　They, too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested that theylooked on life as low and wished they were well out of it, like thebody upstairs. One assumed that there was a body upstairs. Onecannot help it at these places. One's first thought on entering isthat the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a hushed voice"Tea or chocolate? And would you care to view the remains?"Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. She couldscarcely believe that she had only been there five minutes, but theticking of the watch assured her that it had not stopped. Herdepression deepened. Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in acavern of gloom like this instead of at the Savoy? She would haveenjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have lost beyond recoverythe first gay eagerness with which she had set out to meet the manshe loved.

　　Suddenly she began to feel frightened. Some evil spirit, possiblythe kettle, seemed to whisper to her that she had been foolish incoming here, to cast doubts on what she had hitherto regarded asthe one rock-solid fact in the world, her love for Geoffrey. Couldshe have changed since those days in Wales? Life had been soconfusing of late. In the vividness of recent happenings those daysin Wales seemed a long way off, and she herself different from thegirl of a year ago. She found herself thinking about George Bevan.