“Hope I’m not late,” said the stranger, sitting down and breathing heavily. “I thought a little exercise would do me good, so I walked.”
Every nerve in Maud’s body seemed to come to life simultaneously. She tingled from head to foot. It was Geoffrey!
He was looking over his shoulder and endeavouring by snapping his fingers to attract the attention of the nearest distressed gentlewoman; and this gave Maud time to recover from the frightful shock she had received. Her dizziness left her; and, leaving, was succeeded by a panic dismay. This couldn’t be Geoffrey! It was outrageous that it should be Geoffrey! And yet it undeniably was Geoffrey. For a year she had prayed that Geoffrey might be given back to her, and the gods had heard her prayer. They had given her back Geoffrey, and with a careless generosity they had given her twice as much of him as she had expected. She had asked for the slim Apollo whom she had loved in Wales, and this colossal changeling had arrived in his stead.
We all of us have our prejudices. Maud had a prejudice against fat men. It may have been the spectacle of her brother Percy, bulging more and more every year she had known him, that had caused this kink in her character. At any rate, it existed, and she gazed in sickened silence at Geoffrey. He had turned again now, and she was enabled to get a full and complete view of him. He was not merely stout. He was gross. The slim figure which had haunted her for a year had spread into a sea of waistcoat. The keen lines of his face had disappeared altogether. His cheeks were pink jellies.
One of the distressed gentlewomen had approached with a slow disdain, and was standing by the table, brooding on the corpse upstairs. It seemed a shame to bother her.
“Tea or chocolate?” she inquired proudly.
“Tea, please,” said Maud, finding her voice.
“One tea,” sighed the mourner.
“Chocolate for me,” said Geoffrey briskly, with the air of one discoursing on a congenial topic. “I’d like plenty of whipped cream. And please see that it’s hot.”
“One chocolate.”
Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that occupied him.
“And bring some fancy cakes–I like the ones with icing on them–and some tea-cake and buttered toast. Please see there’s plenty of butter on it.”
Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in whose lexicon there should have been no such word as butter, a man who should have called for the police had some enemy endeavoured to thrust butter upon him.
“Well,” said Geoffrey leaning forward, as the haughty ministrant drifted away, “you haven’t changed a bit. To look at, I mean.”
“No?” said Maud.
“You’re just the same. I think I”–he squinted down at his waistcoat–“have put on a little weight. I don’t know if you notice it?”
Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on a little weight, and didn’t know if she had noticed it! She was oppressed by the eternal melancholy miracle of the fat man who does not realize that he has become fat.
“It was living on the yacht that put me a little out of condition,” said Geoffrey. “I was on the yacht nearly all the time since I saw you last. The old boy had a Japanese cook and lived pretty high. It was apoplexy that got him. We had a great time touring about. We were on the Mediterranean all last winter, mostly at Nice.”
“I should like to go to Nice,” said Maud, for something to say. She was feeling that it was not only externally that Geoffrey had changed. Or had he in reality always been like this, commonplace and prosaic, and was it merely in her imagination that he had been wonderful?
“If you ever go,” said Geoffrey, earnestly, “don’t fail to lunch at the Hotel Cote d’Azur. They give you the most amazing selection of hors d’oeuvres you ever saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters! And there’s a fish–I’ve forgotten it’s name, it’ll come back to me–that’s just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to have it broiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the flavour. Tell the waiter you must have it broiled, with melted butter and a little parsley and some plain boiled potatoes. It’s really astonishing. It’s best to stick to fish on the Continent. People can say what they like, but I maintain that the French don’t really understand steaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn’t bad, though I prefer our way of serving it. Of course, what the French are real geniuses at is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I went ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet with chicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentious place near the harbour. I shall always remember it.”