When the tea came he watched her in silent fascination while her hands flitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and slender in contrast to the coarse china and lumpy bread. It seemed wonderful to him that any one should perform with such careless ease the difficult task of making tea in public in a lurching train. He would never have dared to order it for himself, lest he should attract the notice of his fellow-passengers; yet, secure in the shelter of her conspicuousness, he sipped the inky draught with a delicious sense of exhilaration.

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905.