“I see,” he said, “that _you_ complain of your age because its senses are deranged, and idlers like me because the gifts that it assigns to the doers, as opposed to the thinkers, are not gold but tinsel.”
“No, no,” she said, “I do not complain of my age! If I complained of anything, it would be of myself who am unfit for my age. And I do not think that the gifts of our actions are tinsel.”
“Perhaps you are right, and the fault is mine because _my_ senses are deranged?”
“There is great room for action now, as it seems to me. If a man appeared to-morrow with the secret of attraction in him—the secret that Napoleon had or Byron—he would control us as much as they did. They are ours too, these men.”
“But we think too much? we can describe everything, and do nothing?”
“I do not know,” she said, “I have no opinion!”
“Will you please make the tea?” she said.
Miss Medwin rose at once, Gildea rising too, smiling. It was Mrs. Medwin’s peculiar charm that, at certain apparently eccentric moments, she would speak and act with the pretty spontaneous sweetness of a young girl. This was the scent this wonderful flower had retained, despite all the terrible heats of the noontide and frosts of the dawn that had fallen upon its life. She had spoken in this manner now.
Miss Medwin went behind the tea-table which Edgar had just brought in and on which he was placing the bright silver tea-urn, and the water-can with its blue-violet-flamed spirit-lamp; then, at a nod from Gildea, disappeared. Miss Medwin poured out a cup of tea which Gildea took to Mrs. Medwin, returning for the milk and sugar, while Miss Medwin took the second cup to Maddock, who received it with suave and charming thanks. Mrs. Medwin thanked Gildea, who passed on with the milk and sugar to Maddock, and, as he returned to the tea-table for the cakes and biscuits, passed Miss Medwin with the third cup on her way to Alcock. Alcock received her with thanks profuse and jocular.
“Do you take milk and sugar?” asked Miss Medwin.
“No, no, thank you, Miss Medwin,” returned Alcock, “I take neither!”
Gildea arrived, with a plate of cakes in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other. Mrs. Medwin recognised in the biscuits those of a sort to which she was somewhat addicted, and divined that Gildea had noticed the fact.