off his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage, even to a nice girl
like Joan, was a rather irksome business, but one could not have a
honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of married happiness without
such preliminary. He wondered what Minorca was really like as a place to
stop in; in his mind's eye it was an island in perpetual half-mourning,
with black or white Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it would
not be a bit like that when one came to examine it. People who had been
in Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any Muscovy
ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no Minorca fowls on
the island.

His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clock
striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfaction
settled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just at
the hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table, spread
with an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate porcelain tea-
cups, behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly in a series of
little friendly questions about weak or strong tea, how much, if any,
sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. "Is it one lump? I forgot. You do
take milk, don't you? Would you like some more hot water, if it's too
strong?"

Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and hundreds
of actual experiences had told him that they were true to life. Thousands
of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were sitting behind dainty
porcelain and silver fittings, with their voices tinkling pleasantly in a
cascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the
whole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a woman
should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm or
looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked