“Yes,” Nancy said, “she’s better. She’s under-nourished, that’s what the trouble is.”
“I suspected that,” Collier Pratt said ruefully. “I’m not specially talented as a parent. I feed her passionately for days, and then I stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my circumstances eat sketchily at best. The only reason that I am fed with any regularity is that I have the habit of coming to this restaurant of yours. By the way, is it yours? I found you in charge to-day to my amazement.”
“I am in charge to-day,” Nancy acknowledged; “in fact I have taken over the management of it for—for a friend.”
“The mysterious philanthropist.”
“Ye-es.”
“Then I will refrain from any comment on the lunch to-day.”
“Oh! that—that was a mistake,” Nancy cried, “an experiment. Gaspard the chef—was ill.”
“He was very ill, father, dear,” Sheila added gravely, “like crossing the Channel, much sicker than I was. I was only sick like crossing the ocean, you know.”
“These fine distinctions,” Collier Pratt said, “she’s much given to them.” His eyes narrowed as they rested again on the picture Nancy made—the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his coming,—the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to Caroline’s report of his conversation with Betty, something of what was in his mind about her.