Peter had asked to have her
"high tea" in Jim's library, because she knew it was the room he liked
best, and was most associated with his daily life at Stellamare; but she
pretended that it was because of the "special" view from the windows,
over the cypress walk with the old garden statues, and down to what she
used to call the "classic temple," in a grove of olives and stone pines
close to the sea.
When tea came, she insisted upon giving Schuyler a cup. It would, she
said, make him more human and sympathetic. Though she had pronounced
herself to be starving, after all she was satisfied with very little.
Having finished, she leaned her elbows on the table, and gazed out of
the long window close by, at the rain which continued to fall in wicked
black streaks against a clearing, sunset sky. "It's like the stripes on
a tawny snake," she said, "or on a tiger's back. This isn't a proper
Riviera day. And the mountains of Italy have put powder on their
foreheads and noses. While it's rained down here, it's been snowing on
the heights. As my French maid used to say, 'I think the weather's in
train to rearrange itself.'"
"Never mind the weather," said Jim. "Tell me about the 'other part.'
You've excited my curiosity."
"I meant to. But talking of the weather draws people together, don't you
think? just as the thought of tea does in England and dear old
Scotland. Everybody everywhere having tea at the same time, you know,
and the same feelings and thoughts.
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