A Humble Enterprise

He heaved himself out of his deep chair, retired to take off his smoking-jacket, and escorted her to the tram and to Collins Street.

"If you are going to be long," he said, at Mrs. Earl's door, "I'll look into the club for a few minutes."

"I'm not going to be a second, but don't wait for me," she answered, "Go to your club, old fogey, but be home in good time for dinner."

However, when she had done her errand, which was only to deliver an urgent message concerning the trimming of a Cup gown – to which Mrs. Earl was not likely to pay the least attention, knowing her business better than any lady could teach her – there was Tony on the pavement, still in devoted attendance.

"Where do you want to go now, Polly?" he asked, as if clubs were nothing to him.

"Oh, nowhere – except just to get my tea. Don't wait, dear boy."

"Where do you go for your tea?"

"To a room in Little Collins Street."

"What an extraordinary place to have one's tea in!" He signalled for a hansom. "I'll go with you."

"Oh, no; don't you bother. It's not a place for men."

"I'll take you to the door, at any rate."

He took her to the door, and the outside of the basket-maker's premises made him curious to see the inside, and he begged to be allowed to escort her upstairs. "If only to see that you are not robbed and murdered," he said.

"No fear of that," she returned, laughing. "You go and amuse yourself at the club. This is a ladies' place."

"Men prohibited?"

"Not prohibited, but they don't want them."

"All right. I'll leave the cab for you."

He went to his club, and she to her tea and scones (the room was satisfactorily full, and Jenny too busy to be talked to); and they met again at Toorak in time to entertain Maude for half an hour before she had to dress.

Next day Maude was determined to have her stepson for herself – especially as there was a dark rumour that he was going to desert her the day after for the superior attractions of Jarvis and his bachelor abode; and Anthony was quite willing to gratify her. Recognising that she would be de trop, Mary Oxenham chose to stay at home and amuse the children; and he and his pretty stepmother (seven years his junior) drove away after luncheon for the ostensible purpose of paying calls together.

They paid two calls, and then, being in East Melbourne, Maude proposed that they should go and have some tea.

"What!" exclaimed Tony. "Haven't you had enough tea for one afternoon?"

"It was horribly bad tea," said she, "and I know a place where you can get it exceptionally good. I am just dying for a cup."

"Where is your place?"

"In Little Collins Street. The funniest place you ever saw."

"Why, that must be the place Mary wouldn't take me to yesterday. She said men were not admitted."

"Oh, what a story!"

"Well, she said the people there didn't want them."

"Stuff! Of course they do. Didn't you hear Mrs. Bullivant say she was there yesterday with Captain what's-his-name, that charming new A.D.C.? No, you were flirting with Miss Baxter – oh, I saw you! – and had no eyes or ears for anybody else."

"Then I presume I may accompany you, and have some tea too?"

"Of course you may. You'll be charmed – everybody is. There are dear little chairs, in which you can actually rest yourself, and tables so high" – spreading her hand on a level with her knee. "And it's awfully retired and peaceful, if you want to talk. I only hope" – regardless of her previous efforts to compass that end – "that it won't get too well known. That would spoil it."

Anthony stalked through the basket-maker's shop (that customers passed that way, in view of his wares, was a consideration that largely affected the rent, to Mrs. Liddon's advantage), and knocked his head and his elbows on the dark staircase, and thought it was indeed the funniest place of its kind that he had ever seen. But when he reached the tea-room, and looked round with his cultured eyes upon its singular appointments, he was quite as charmed as Maude had expected him to be, and more surprised than charmed.

"How very extraordinary!" he ejaculated. "What an oasis in the howling desert of Little Collins Street!"

"Yes, isn't it?" returned Maude, jerking her head from side to side. "I knew you would like it. But, oh, do look how full it is! How tiresome of people to come flocking here, as if there were no other place in the whole town! There's hardly a table left. Oh, here's one! I'll get that girl to put it in the corner yonder. She knows me."

"It will do here," said Anthony, with a little peremptory air that she was quite accustomed to. "Sit down."

He dropped himself into a basket-chair, and it creaked ominously.

"What a very extraordinary place!" he repeated, as his stepmother drew off her gloves in preparation for prolonged repose and conversation. Then, as Jenny advanced, blushing a little – for she knew this was the junior partner, and he stared at her intently – "What a very – " He left that sentence unfinished.

"Tea and scones for two, if you please. Yes, she's quite a new type, isn't she? – like her tea-room. She's the daughter of old Liddon, who used to be in the office, and who was killed by being run over on the railway the other day. Mary says she's quite well educated."

"What!" cried Anthony. He sat bolt upright in his chair. "Old Liddon dead! Good heavens! And his daughter keeping a restaurant! Why, I thought they rather prided themselves on being gentlefolks. The old man used to tell me he was an Eton boy – quite true, too."

"He married his cook," said Mrs. Churchill – which was a libel, for poor old Mrs. Liddon's family was as "genteel" as her own – "and I suppose the girl takes after her. Mrs. Liddon's cooking talents are now exercised on the tea and scones that they sell here, and they do her credit, as you will see. I'm sure I wish to goodness I could find a good cook!"