"I came to see Mrs. Fell," said the girl's voice. "I wondered if she would offer me tea."
She looked up seriously from under her sodden hat-brim. The lamplight brought her close out of the rain. She spoke with an innocent, apologetic glance past him into the hall.
"They're out," he said. "But please don't let that stop you from coming in. I–I don't know whether I can manage making tea the right way…
"I can," she told him.
All the stiffness vanished. She smiled. So presently the wet hat and coat were hanging in the hall, and she was hurrying about the kitchen in a highly practical manner while he tried to give a decent appearance of being busy. There is never, he reflected, such a guilty feeling as standing in the middle of a kitchen during the preparation of food; it is like watching somebody change a tire. Whenever you try to move about, as though you were actually doing something, you run into the other person with a bump; and then you feel as though you had shoved the tire-changer over on his face for sheer devilment. They did not talk much, but Dorothy addressed the tea-things vigorously.
She laid the cloth on a small table before the fire in the doctor's study. The curtains were drawn, the blaze piled again with coal. Intent, her brows puckered, she was buttering toast; he could see the shadows under her eyes in the yellow lamplight. Hot muffins, marmalade, and strong tea; the rasp of the knife on toast, steadily, and the warm sweet odour of cinnamon spread on it….
She looked up suddenly.
"I say, aren't you going to drink your tea?"
"No," he said flatly. "Tell me what's been happening.
The knife tinkled on the plate as she put it down, very quietly. She answered, looking away: "There isn't anything. Only, I had to get out of that house."