The town was wafting for him to do something decisive in the matter of
what it called "the stuff."

Thus Ruth Earp was the first to introduce him to the higher intimate
civilisations, the refinements lurking behind the foul walls of Bursley.

"Sugar?" she questioned, her head on one side, her arm uplifted, her
sleeve drooping, and a bit of sugar caught like a white mouse between
the claws of the tongs.

Nobody before had ever said "Sugar?" to him like that. His mother never
said "Sugar?" to him. His mother was aware that he liked three pieces,
but she would not give him more than two. "Sugar?" in that slightly
weak, imploring voice seemed to be charged with a significance at once
tremendous and elusive.

"Yes, please."

"Another?"

And the "Another?" was even more delicious.

He said to himself: "I suppose this is what they call flirting."

When a chronicler tells the exact truth, there is always a danger that
he will not be believed. Yet, in spite of the risk, it must be said
plainly that at this point Denry actually thought of marriage. An absurd
and childish thought, preposterously rash; but it came into his mind,
and--what is more--it stuck there! He pictured marriage as a perpetual
afternoon tea alone with an elegant woman, amid an environment of