“Oh, rather,” I said. “Of course! Certainly. What I mean is—”
Jeeves projected himself into the room with the tea. I was jolly glad to see him. There’s nothing like having a bit of business arranged for one when one isn’t certain of one’s lines. With the teapot to fool about with I felt happier.
“Tea, tea, tea—what? What?” I said.
It wasn’t what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good deal more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation. I poured her out a cup. She sipped it and put the cup down with a shudder.
“Do you mean to say, young man,” she said frostily, “that you expect me to drink this stuff?”
“Rather! Bucks you up, you know.”
“What do you mean by the expression ‘Bucks you up’?”
“Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fizz.”
“I don’t understand a word you say. You’re English, aren’t you?”
I admitted it. She didn’t say a word. And somehow she did it in a way that made it worse than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow it was brought home to me that she didn’t like Englishmen, and that if she had had to meet an Englishman, I was the one she’d have chosen last.
Conversation languished again after that.
Then I tried again. I was becoming more convinced every moment that you can’t make a real lively salon with a couple of people, especially if one of them lets it go a word at a time.
“Are you comfortable at your hotel?” I said.