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Page 117
"One chocolate."
Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that occupied him.
"And bring some fancy cakes--I like the ones with icing on
them--and some tea-cake and buttered toast. Please see there's
plenty of butter on it."
Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in whose lexicon there
should have been no such word as butter, a man who should have
called for the police had some enemy endeavoured to thrust butter
upon him.
"Well," said Geoffrey leaning forward, as the haughty ministrant
drifted away, "you haven't changed a bit. To look at, I mean."
"No?" said Maud.
"You're just the same. I think I"--he squinted down at his
waistcoat--"have put on a little weight. I don't know if you notice
it?"
Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on a little weight, and
didn't know if she had noticed it! She was oppressed by the eternal
melancholy miracle of the fat man who does not realize that he has
become fat.
"It was living on the yacht that put me a little out of condition,"
said Geoffrey. "I was on the yacht nearly all the time since I saw
you last. The old boy had a Japanese cook and lived pretty high. It
was apoplexy that got him. We had a great time touring about. We
were on the Mediterranean all last winter, mostly at Nice."
"I should like to go to Nice," said Maud, for something to say. She
was feeling that it was not only externally that Geoffrey had
changed. Or had he in reality always been like this, commonplace
and prosaic, and was it merely in her imagination that he had been
wonderful?
"If you ever go," said Geoffrey, earnestly, "don't fail to lunch at
the Hotel C�te d'Azur. They give you the most amazing selection of
hors d'oeuvres you ever saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters! And
there's a fish--I've forgotten it's name, it'll come back to
me--that's just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to have it
broiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the flavour. Tell the
waiter you must have it broiled, with melted butter and a little
parsley and some plain boiled potatoes. It's really astonishing.
It's best to stick to fish on the Continent. People can say what
they like, but I maintain that the French don't really understand
steaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn't bad, though I prefer
our way of serving it. Of course, what the French are real geniuses
at is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I
went ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet with
chicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentious
place near the harbour. I shall always remember it."
The mourner returned, bearing a laden tray, from which she removed
the funeral bakemeats and placed them limply on the table. Geoffrey
shook his head, annoyed.
"I particularly asked for plenty of butter on my toast!" he said.
"I hate buttered toast if there isn't lots of butter. It isn't
worth eating. Get me a couple of pats, will you, and I'll spread it
myself. Do hurry, please, before the toast gets cold. It's no good
if the toast gets cold. They don't understand tea as a meal at
these places," he said to Maud, as the mourner withdrew. "You have
to go to the country to appreciate the real thing. I remember we
lay off Lyme Regis down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I went
and had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amazing! Thick
Devonshire cream and home-made jam and cakes of every kind. This
sort of thing here is just a farce. I do wish that woman would
make haste with that butter. It'll be too late in a minute."
Maud sipped her tea in silence. Her heart was like lead within her.
The recurrence of the butter theme as a sort of _leit motif_ in her
companion's conversation was fraying her nerves till she felt she
could endure little more. She cast her mind's eye back over the
horrid months and had a horrid vision of Geoffrey steadily
absorbing butter, day after day, week after week--ever becoming
more and more of a human keg. She shuddered.
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