"What trouble did you mean?" she found words to ask.
"This. Why you sent for me."
She felt as if he had stabbed her. She stopped, overwhelmed by the blow that the man she loved so whole-heartedly had struck her.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Nothing—only—"
"Only what?"
"You don't seem at all glad to see me."
She spoke as if pained at and resentful of his coldness. He looked at her, to watch the suffering in her eyes crystallise into a defiant hardness.
"I am, no end. But I'm tired and cold. Wait till we've had something to eat," he said kindly.
Mavis melted. Her love for him was such that she found it no easy matter being angry with him.