“Thanks. I thought so,” she interrupted. “I told him, but he doesn’t seem to care. What will become—” Her smile was friendly but sad. “I’m breaking orders: the one thing he won’t let me do is to talk to strangers.”
“Are we?” said Miles, more gloomily.
“You know we are,” she answered, looking down. “In one way, no. If that thing had passed over us, out there—” The gray cardigan did not hide a passing shiver. For a time her bright head remained drooping. “No, we’re not. I’ll ask you. Do you know a man named Florio?”
“Do I?” he cried. “He lives with us, down there!”
“What is he?” she asked eagerly. “What does he do?”
“Nothing,” answered Miles, with a puzzled scowl. “I—I don’t know.”
“He and my father seem,” she began, then paused. “Has he anything to do with fish—with herring?”
“Except to eat them!” Laughing at her incongruous picture of Tony, Miles suddenly felt a new and curious pang. “Do you like him?”
She would not look up.
“I—I hate him!” Her answer trembled with vehemence. “Row, please. Quick, I must get home!”