Nina’s acquaintance with the garden hardly extended beyond the kaleidoscope of herbaceous border outside the drawing-room windows, but she liked the idea of silently communing with Nature.
“I shall go to America with that concert-party,” announced Morris, referring to certain projects of a professional friend.
Nina, without the slightest warning, dissolved into tears.
She cried so much less becomingly than usual that Morris was moved to quick, sudden compunction.
He came and knelt beside her.
“Darling, don’t cry. I won’t go if you hate it. But what am I to do here? There’s no work fit for a man.”
Nina continued to weep.
Morris gazed at her with miserable perplexity. Accustomed though he was to Nina’s easy tears, they invariably caused him acute discomfort, and, moreover, he was conscious of a certain feeling of remorse.
“Mother, don’t cry. I’ll stay if you want me, of course.”
“No—no—it isn’t that exactly.”