But at that Mouse stepped forward. She said, too deliberately, not looking at Dick, with her quaint clipped English accent: “Yes, I’d like some tea. Tea for three.” And suddenly she raised her muff as though her hands were clasped inside it, and she was telling the pale, sweaty _garçon_ by that action that she was at the end of her resources, that she cried out to him to save her with “Tea. Immediately!” This seemed to me so amazingly in the picture, so exactly the gesture and cry that one would expect (though I couldn’t have imagined it) to be wrung out of an Englishwoman faced with a great crisis, that I was almost tempted to hold up my hand and protest. “No! No! Enough. Enough. Let us leave off there. At the word—tea. For really, really, you’ve filled your greediest subscriber so full that he will burst if he has to swallow another word.” It even pulled Dick up. Like someone who has been unconscious for a long long time he turned slowly to Mouse and slowly looked at her with his tired, haggard eyes, and murmured with the echo of his dreamy voice: “Yes. That’s a good idea.” And then: “You must be tired, Mouse. Sit down.” She sat down in a chair with lace tabs on the arms; he leaned against the bed, and I established myself on a straight-backed chair, crossed my legs and brushed some imaginary dust off the knees of my trousers. (The Parisian at his ease.) There came a tiny pause. Then he said: “Won’t you take off your coat. Mouse?” “No, thanks. Not just now.” Were they going to ask me? Or should I hold up my hand and call out in a baby voice: “It’s my turn to be asked.” No, I shouldn’t. They didn’t ask me. The pause became a silence. A real silence. “. . . Come, my Parisian fox-terrier! Amuse these sad English! It’s no wonder they are such a nation for dogs.” But, after all—why should I? It was not my “job,” as they would say. Nevertheless, I made a vivacious little bound at Mouse. “What a pity it is that you did not arrive by daylight. There is such a charming view from these two windows. You know, the hotel is on a corner and each window looks down an immensely long, straight street.” “Yes,” said she. “Not that that sounds very charming,” I laughed. “But there is so much animation—so many absurd little boys on bicycles and people hanging out of windows and—oh, well, you’ll see for yourself in the morning. . . . Very amusing. Very animated.” “Oh, yes,” said she. If the pale, sweaty _garçon_ had not come in at that moment, carrying the tea-tray high on one hand as if the cups were cannon-balls and he a heavy weight lifter on the cinema. . . . He managed to lower it on to a round table. “Bring the table over here,” said Mouse. The waiter seemed to be the only person she cared to speak to. She took her hands out of her muff, drew off her gloves and flung back the old-fashioned cape. “Do you take milk and sugar?” “No milk, thank you, and no sugar.” I went over for mine like a little gentleman. She poured out another cup.