"You did?"
"I can't see any of 'em to-night," she said resolutely. "Besides, I want to find out what you meant by what you said in the taxicab before I do anything else."
"What I meant in the taxicab?" he echoed. "Oh, Julia! Julia!"
She frowned, first at the fire, then, turning her head, at Noble. "You seem to feel reproachful about something," she observed.
"No, I don't. I don't feel reproachful, Julia. I don't know what I feel, but I don't feel reproachful."
She smiled faintly. "Don't you? Well, there's something perhaps you do feel, and that's hungry. Will you stay to dinner with me—if I go and get it?"
"What?"
"You can have dinner with me—if you want to? You can stay till ten o'clock—if you want to? Wait!" she said, and jumped up and ran out of the room.
Half an hour later she came back and called softly to him from the doorway; and he followed her to the dining-room.
"It isn't much of a dinner, Noble," she said, a little tremulously, being for once (though strictly as a cook) genuinely apologetic;—but the scrambled eggs, cold lamb, salad, and coffee were quite as "much of a dinner" as Noble wanted. To him everything on that table was hallowed, yet excruciating.