“I'm sure I must be keeping you from your own dinner,” he said. “Don't let me do that for the world.”
“Why—why—” faltered Serena. She looked appealingly at Daniel, and the latter's instinctive hospitality asserted itself. He had disliked the young man “Tacks” when he met him in the Rathskeller. Now that “Tacks” had become Mr. Percy Hungerford, Aunt Lavinia's cousin and his own distant relative, the dislike was only partially abated. But to turn him away from the door hungry seemed wrong somehow.
“Hadn't you better—” he began.
“Have dinner with us?” finished his wife.
Mr. Hungerford protested.
“Oh, I couldn't think of it,” he declared. “No doubt you have guests—”
“Oh, no, we haven't. We're all alone and it would be no trouble at all. We should like to have you stay. Shouldn't we, Daniel?”
“Sartin, no trouble at all,” said Daniel heartily. “Like to have you first rate.”
“Well, if you insist. It is a frightful imposition—I shouldn't think of it, of course, but—well, thank you so much.”
So Hapgood received orders to lay another plate, and Mr. Hungerford, still murmuring protests, suffered himself to be conducted to the dining-room.