A Damsel in Distress

At a quarter past four in the afternoon, two days after the

memorable dinner-party at which Lord Marshmoreton had behaved with

so notable a lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, waiting

for Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his telegram that he would

meet her there at four-thirty: but eagerness had brought Maud to the

tryst a quarter of an hour ahead of time: and already the sadness

of her surroundings was causing her to regret this impulsiveness.

Depression had settled upon her spirit. She was aware of something

that resembled foreboding.

Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately suggest to those who

know their London, is a tea-shop in Bond Street, conducted by

distressed gentlewomen. In London, when a gentlewoman becomes

distressed--which she seems to do on the slightest provocation--she

collects about her two or three other distressed gentlewomen,

forming a quorum, and starts a tea-shop in the West-End, which she

calls Ye Oak Leaf, Ye Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or Ye

Snug Harbour, according to personal taste. There, dressed in

Tyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian, or some other exotic costume, she

and her associates administer refreshments of an afternoon with a

proud languor calculated to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriest

customer. Here you will find none of the coarse bustle and

efficiency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co., nor the

glitter and gaiety of Rumpelmayer's. These places have an

atmosphere of their own. They rely for their effect on an

insufficiency of light, an almost total lack of ventilation, a

property chocolate cake which you are not supposed to cut, and the

sad aloofness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubted

whether there is anything in the world more damping to the spirit

than a London tea-shop of this kind, unless it be another London

tea-shop of the same kind.

Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a kettle bubbled in an

undertone, like a whispering pessimist. Across the room two

distressed gentlewomen in fancy dress leaned against the wall.

They, too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested that they

looked on life as low and wished they were well out of it, like the

body upstairs. One assumed that there was a body upstairs. One

cannot help it at these places. One's first thought on entering is

that the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a hushed voice

"Tea or chocolate? And would you care to view the remains?"

Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. She could

scarcely believe that she had only been there five minutes, but the

ticking of the watch assured her that it had not stopped. Her

depression deepened. Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in a

cavern of gloom like this instead of at the Savoy? She would have

enjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have lost beyond recovery

the first gay eagerness with which she had set out to meet the man

she loved.