In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke in with her low laugh.
"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants——"
The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward Ewing: "I can't remember what they like when they come back the second time. It's too much to expect."
"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants more tea, and most of them are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them."
The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's disarray of cups and plates.
"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her lap.
"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically.
"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're always at something. Town is tiresome."
"But don't you live here?"
"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so—dad says I'm not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this sort of thing—" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by some freemasonry of the shy.