He wheeled, delighted. "Now, how does my face look when it's naughty?" "Oh, that _would_ be telling. It's just as well you shouldn't know." "Was it as naughty as all that then?" "Yes. Or as nice." They kept it up, lightly, till Partridge and Annie Trinder came, tinkling and rattling with the tea-things outside the door. As if, Mr. Waddington thought, they meant to warn them. "Partridge," he called, as the butler was going, "Partridge, if Sir John Corbett calls you can show him in here; but I'm not at home to anybody else." (Clever idea, that.) "He isn't coming, is he, the tiresome old thing?" "No. He isn't. If I thought he was for one minute I wouldn't be at home." "Then why--?" "Why did I say I would be? Because I wanted to make it safe for you, Elise." Thus tactfully he let it dawn on her that he might be dangerous. "We don't want to be interrupted, do we?" he said. "Not by Sir John Corbett." He drew up the big, padded sofa square before the fire for Elise. All his movements were unconscious, innocent of deliberation and design. He seated himself top-heavily behind the diminutive gate-legged tea-table; the teapot and cups were like dolls' things in his great hands. She looked at him, at his slow fingers fumbling with the sugar tongs. "Would you like me to pour out tea for you?" she said. He started visibly. He wouldn't like it at all. He wasn't going to allow Elise to put herself into Fanny's place, pouring out tea for him as if she was his wife. She wouldn't have suggested it if she had had any tact or any delicacy. "No," he said. The "No" sounded hard and ungracious. "You must really let me have the pleasure of waiting on you." The sugar dropped from the tongs; he fumbled again, madly, and Elise smiled. "Damn the tongs," he thought; "damn the sugar." "Take it in your fingers, goose," she said. Goose! An endearment, a caress. It softened him. His tenderness for Elise came back. "My fingers are all thumbs," he said. "Your thumbs, then. You don't suppose I mind?" There was meaning in her voice, and Mr. Waddington conceived himself to be on the verge of the first exquisite intimacies of love. He left off thinking about Fanny. He poured out tea and handed bread and butter in a happy dream. He ate and drank without knowing what he ate and drank. His whole consciousness was one muzzy, heavy sense of the fullness and nearness of Elise. He could feel his ears go "vroom-vroom" and his voice thicken as if he were slightly, very slightly drunk. He wondered how Elise could go on eating bread and butter. He heard himself sigh when at last he put her cup down. He considered the position of the tea-table in relation to the sofa. It hemmed in that part of it where he was going to sit. Very cramping. He moved it well back and considered it again. It now stood in his direct line of retreat from the sofa to the armchair. An obstruction. If anybody were to come in. He moved it to one side.