"Tell me about yourself," he asked, or rather commanded, so brusque and direct was the request.
She told him about the small house and the small life she had led in it, even about the furniture and the bric-à-brac, confessing to her occasional clearances and the deception she had to practise on her father about them. He was very silent, but he was a good listener. Soon he began to smoke, but did not ask leave. This might be rudeness, but seemed a rather cousinly sort of rudeness, and was readily forgiven.
"And suddenly I come to all this!" she murmured. Then with a start she added, "But I'm forgetting your mother's death and what you must feel, and chattering about myself!"
"I asked you to talk about yourself. Is it such a great change to come here?"
"Immense! To come here even for a day! Immense!" She waved her hand a moment and found him following it with his eyes as it moved.
"You don't look," he said slowly, "as if it was any change at all."
"What do you mean?" she asked, interested in what he seemed to suggest.
"You fit in," he murmured, looking up at the house—at the window of Addie Tristram's room. "And you're very poor?" he asked.
"Yes. And you——!"
"Oh, I'm not rich as such things go. The estate has fallen in value very much, you know. But——"