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A broad couch, piled with silk cushions occupied the far end beneath the window, and the feet sank with a delicate pleasure into a thick velvety carpet. In the centre a small inlaid table of cedar wood held a silver tea-service. The candlesticks were of silver also, and cast in a light and fantastic fashion. The solitary discord was a black easel funereally draped.
He led us into a small, though no untidy room, lighted by a pine torch. In the centre hung a carabine and a high Cossack cap. Our host, a Cossack from the river Iaik, was a peasant of some sixty years, still fresh and green. Saveliitch brought in the case containing my tea-service; he asked for fire to make me a few cups of tea, of which I never had greater need. The host hastened to serve us.
"You can talk about your sister, and you can call HIM Archibald, and you can mince up your words. But have you got a tea-service like this? Can you conceive more perfect strawberry jam than this? Did not my dress cost more than you spend on your clothes in a year? Has a man ever looked at you? After all, is there not something about my situation ... in short, something ...?"
Tims uttering words of commendation, slyly poured some brandy into one of the large teacups before lighting the candles. "Now, my girl," she said, when she had made the tea, "drink this, and you'll feel better." Milly leaned forward, her round chin on her hand, and looked intently at the tea-service and at the proffered cup.
There was the big range, filling half the space of one of the side-walls, its steel framings glittering like polished silver; the high plate-rack full of shining crockery at one end by the door, and the low, comfortable couch at the other; two lines of linen hung on cords stretched under the ceiling airing above the range, and the solid deal table in the middle of the room was covered with a snow-white cloth, on which a pretty tea-service was set out.
Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you take a seat a moment? and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr. Snyder was in. The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a Japanese table, was a tea-service in blue and white.
The red glow of the fire glinting on the silver tea-service seemed the reflection of her cheerfulness. "If you're so certain that you know, you might tell me," he said stiffly. "I know Do you mind if I smoke?" She leant forward while he held a match to her cigarette. "I know that you're an intensely lonely man. All men have to be lonely till they're thirty if they're going to get anywhere.
She gazed longingly, sadly into the glowing heart of the fire, and saw visions and dreamed dreams, but not pleasing ones; they only served to make her sadness deeper. Presently the door opened, and Nora came in with the lamp. Glancing at her mistress, who did not move, the woman then went out and brought a small tea-service on a tray.
The three little squatting women, graceful and dainty, with their narrow slits of eyes, their magnificent chignons in huge bows, smooth and shining as boot-polish, and the little tea-service on the floor, the landscape seen through the verandah, the pagoda perched among the clouds; and over all the same affectation everywhere, in every detail.
In a recess under the stairs, immediately outside the door, was a box about a foot square and eighteen inches deep covered with black American cloth. She bent down and unlocked this box, which was padded within and contained the Baines silver tea-service. These she put on a tray that always stood on end in the recess. Then she looked upwards through the banisters to the second floor.
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