[2] The characters and their relationship possibly were inspired by Mansfield's older sister Vera Margaret Beauchamp and her husband James Mackintosh Bell.
[3] A man and a woman who used to be romantically involved meet by chance in a tea-house not having seen each other for about six years.
They sit together and reminisce about past events – for example, the day they spent at Kew Gardens together.
Despite his originally being perhaps poorer and her being better-off (there is a reference to her in the past eating expensive caviar), now the man seems to be prosperous, while the woman has perhaps fared less well, having had, for example, to give up her piano.
It includes some of the thoughts and reactions of the narrator, but otherwise resembles a genuine conversation, with realistic shifts in topics.