“Indigestible food,” said Miriam, “or badly cooked food.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Corrie, his face clearing, “that’s an excellent refinement.”
“In that case the cause of the accident would be the cook.”
Mr. Corrie laughed delightedly.
“I don’t say that because I’m interested, but because I wanted to take sides with him,” thought Miriam, “the others know that and resent it and now I’m interested.”
“Perhaps,” she said, feeling anxiously about the incriminated cook, “the real cause then would be a fault in her upbringing, I mean he may have lately married a young woman whose mother had not taught her cooking.”
“Oh, you can’t go back further than the cook,” said Mr. Corrie finally.
“But the cause,” she persisted, in a low, anxious voice, “is the sum total of all the circumstances.”
“No, no,” said Mr. Corrie impenetrably, with a hard face—“you can’t take the thing back into the mists of the past.”
He dropped her and took up a lead coming from a man at the other end of the table.