After a pause one of the gentlewomen swam haughtily towards him and looked him between the eyes.

She spoke no word, but her firm, austere glance said: "Now, out with it, and see you behave yourself!" He had been ready to smile chivalrously.

But the smile was put to sudden death.
"Some tea, please," he said faintly, and his intimidated tone said, "If it isn't troubling you too much." "What do you want with it ?" asked the gentlewoman abruptly, and as he was plainly at a loss she added, "Crumpets or tea-cake ?" "Tea-cake," he replied, though he hated tea-cake.

But he was afraid.
"You've escaped this time," said the drapery of her muslins as she swam from his sight.

"But no nonsense while I'm away!" When she sternly and mutely thrust the refection before him, he found that everything on the table except the tea-cakes and the spoon was growing elm-trees.
After one cup and one slice, when the tea had become stewed and undrinkable, and the tea-cake a material suitable for the manufacture of shooting boots, he resumed, at any rate partially, his presence of mind, and remembered that he had done nothing positively criminal in entering the boudoir or drawing-room and requesting food in return for money.
Besides, the gentlewomen were now pretending to each other that he did not exist, and no other rash persons had been driven by hunger into the virgin forest of elm-trees.