He stopped at once.
"I thought you loved me!" he cried.
"I do," she said, with sublime honesty. "Only—I want you to go. Good night!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
I
And here was Angelica, the very next afternoon, sitting once more in her mother’s underground kitchen, with the teapot handy beside her on the stove and a familiar blue and white cup and saucer before her; but the kitchen was not as in the old days. Now it was all disorder and dirt, the clock had stopped, the floor was unswept, the bright blackness of the stove was lost in a grayish fuzz. The mistress—or, one might better say, the servant—of this little domain, who had worked so valiantly to preserve its decency, was lying ill in the adjoining bedroom.
Angelica had got a brief note from her that morning at the breakfast-table:
Dear Angelica:
I am taken ill, and do not know how ever I shall manage. If you can spare the time I wish you would come.
Your Mother.