“I’ll be able to enjoy my breakfast now,” said Hornblower selfconsciously.
“No doubt,” said Bush; he buttered himself a piece of toast, dabbed mustard on his plate—to eat mustard with mutton marked him as a sailor, but he did it without a thought. With good food in front of him there was no need for thought, and he ate in silence. It was only when Hornblower spoke again that Bush realised that Hornblower had been construing the silence as accusatory of something.
“Half a crown,” said Hornblower, defensively, “may mean many things to many people. Yesterday—”
“You’re quite right,” said Bush, filling in the gap as politeness dictated, and then he looked up and realised that it was not because he had no more to say that Hornblower had left the sentence uncompleted.
Maria was standing framed in the diningroom door; her bonnet, gloves, and shawl indicated that she was about to go out, presumably to early marketing since the school where she taught was temporarily closed.
“I—I looked in to see that you had everything you wanted,” she said. The hesitation in her speech seemed to indicate that she had heard Hornblower’s last words, but it was not certain.
“Thank you. Delightful,” mumbled Hornblower.
“Please don’t get up,” said Maria, hastily and with a hint of hostility, as Hornblower and Bush began to rise. Her eyes were wet.
A knocking on the street door relieved the tension, and Maria fled to answer it. From the diningroom they heard a masculine voice, and Maria reappeared, a corporal of marines towering behind her dumpy form.
“Lieutenant Hornblower?” he asked.