"Thank you."
And so the gulf was bridged. When he returned he set the cup and plate of cakes on the arm of her chair.
"I was very rude a little while ago. Will you accept my apologies?"
"On condition that you will never take your playthings and go home."
He laughed engagingly. "You've hit it squarely. It was the act of a petulant child."
"It did not sound exactly like a man who had stoked six months from Singapore to the Andaman Islands. But there is one thing I must understand before this acquaintance continues. You said, 'Who knows what manner of man I am?' Have you ever done anything that would conscientiously forbid you to speak to a young unmarried woman?"
Take care of herself? He rather believed she could. The bluntness of her question dissipated any doubt that remained.
"No. I haven't been that kind of a man," simply. "I could look into my mother's eyes without any sense of shame, if that is what you mean."
"That is all I care to know. Your mother is living?"
"Yes. But I haven't seen her in ten years." His mother! His brows met in a frown. His proud beautiful mother!