"Oh," she laughed, "there are plenty of sights. It's ever so much better than Europe!"
"Then why not pilot?"
"There aren't any tourists."
"Not any at all?"
"None, at least, who require piloting. You see, we haven't been sufficiently exploited yet. For some reason we've escaped so far, though I expect any day to hear that we've been discovered. Those who come are bent on plain, stern business. Most of them get away again the next day. Those who don't get off the next day, or at most the day after that, you may depend upon it have come to stay—like me."
"So you are quite determined to go back again."
"Quite. Why not?"
They gazed quietly at each other a moment, while the minister began dispensing dried-beef-in-cream-on-toast—a special Beachcrest dish; French-fried potatoes. Mrs. Needham watched with quaking heart until it was patent there would be enough to go round. Then she began pouring the tea.
There was always, at any rate, plenty of tea. But Miss Whitcom nearly occasioned a panic by asking for lemon. The rest took cream, if for no better reason than that it was right there on the table. The demand had been, like everything Miss Whitcom did, unpremeditated, and was immediately withdrawn. She tossed her head and laughed. Wasn't it absurd to ask for lemon in the wilderness? But Anna Needham rose to the occasion. It was a crisis.
She tinkled the bell in a breathless yet resolute way; she so wanted to impress her sister as being a competent housekeeper. It amounted almost to a passion. Perhaps living so long with Alfred had rather tended to weaken belief in her own abilities.