Part 4 (1/2)

”But do you really mean----?”

”I've never tasted tea before. How do you think we can boil a kettle?”

”What a strange--what a wonderful world it must be!” cried Adeline. And Mrs. Bunting said: ”I can hardly _imagine_ it without tea. It's worse than-- I mean it reminds me--of abroad.”

Mrs. Bunting was in the act of refilling the Sea Lady's cup. ”I suppose,” she said suddenly, ”as you're not used to it-- It won't affect your diges--” She glanced at Adeline and hesitated. ”But it's China tea.”

And she filled the cup.

”It's an inconceivable world to me,” said Adeline. ”Quite.”

Her dark eyes rested thoughtfully on the Sea Lady for a s.p.a.ce.

”Inconceivable,” she repeated, for, in that unaccountable way in which a whisper will attract attention that a turmoil fails to arouse, the tea had opened her eyes far more than the tail.

The Sea Lady looked at her with sudden frankness. ”And think how wonderful all this must seem to _me_!” she remarked.

But Adeline's imagination was aroused for the moment and she was not to be put aside by the Sea Lady's terrestrial impressions. She pierced--for a moment or so--the ladylike serenity, the a.s.sumption of a terrestrial fas.h.i.+on of mind that was imposing so successfully upon Mrs. Bunting. ”It must be,” she said, ”the strangest world.” And she stopped invitingly....

She could not go beyond that and the Sea Lady would not help her.

There was a pause, a silent eager search for topics. Apropos of the Niphetos roses on the table they talked of flowers and Miss Glendower ventured: ”You have your anemones too! How beautiful they must be amidst the rocks!”

And the Sea Lady said they were very pretty--especially the cultivated sorts....

”And the fishes,” said Mrs. Bunting. ”How wonderful it must be to see the fishes!”

”Some of them,” volunteered the Sea Lady, ”will come and feed out of one's hand.”

Mrs. Bunting made a little coo of approval. She was reminded of chrysanthemum shows and the outside of the Royal Academy exhibition and she was one of those people to whom only the familiar is really satisfying. She had a momentary vision of the abyss as a sort of diverticulum of Piccadilly and the Temple, a place unexpectedly rational and comfortable. There was a kink for a time about a little matter of illumination, but it recurred to Mrs. Bunting only long after. The Sea Lady had turned from Miss Glendower's interrogative gravity of expression to the sunlight.

”The sunlight seems so golden here,” said the Sea Lady. ”Is it always golden?”

”You have that beautiful greenery-blue s.h.i.+mmer I suppose,” said Miss Glendower, ”that one catches sometimes ever so faintly in aquaria----”

”One lives deeper than that,” said the Sea Lady. ”Everything is phosph.o.r.escent, you know, a mile or so down, and it's like--I hardly know. As towns look at night--only brighter. Like piers and things like that.”

”Really!” said Mrs. Bunting, with the Strand after the theatres in her head. ”Quite bright?”

”Oh, quite,” said the Sea Lady.

”But--” struggled Adeline, ”is it never put out?”

”It's so different,” said the Sea Lady.

”That's why it is so interesting,” said Adeline.

”There are no nights and days, you know. No time nor anything of that sort.”

”Now that's very queer,” said Mrs. Bunting with Miss Glendower's teacup in her hand--they were both drinking quite a lot of tea absent-mindedly, in their interest in the Sea Lady. ”But how do you tell when it's Sunday?”