He wanted to speak, to beg her to tell him everything in strict confidence; to offer her his help; but all he could manage was to say very awkwardly: "Why?"
"I do not wish to add further to my obligation..."
"Why use that word?"
"Because I know so well that for all you have done, it is impossible to..." Here her voice failed her, she could only whisper: "Without your help I should have been lost indeed!"
This time he dared not attempt a reply. The position was embarrassing for both, and both felt that it was too difficult for words. Luckily, Mrs. Toby appeared; she made a wry face when she saw them apparently so quiet and miserable.
"When you've quite done thinking, both of you," she said, "your breakfast is waiting in the smoke-room." Her practical, humorous remark saved the situation. Tom laughed outright and the girl smiled. Mrs. Toby, too at breakfast, over which she presided, pressed them to eat, and led the conversation with so much natural tact and ease as to banish any awkwardness there might have been. When the meal was over and she left them, they continued their discourse, Tom occasionally stealing a furtive glance at the girl. The sun shone on her half-open lips; her complexion was of a pallid, ivory hue, and for the first time he noticed that her clear cut profile had the charm which Botticelli and pre-Raphaelite painters loved to portray. The only ornament she wore was a small, simple gold locket round her neck. "Tell me," said Tom, leaning forward, "how is it that you can speak Swedish and English equally well? At first I took you for an American."
"Why should you take me for an American?"
"Well, haven't you just come from America? And somehow your name sounds rather American."
She gazed at him with wide-open eyes and the characteristic little frown appeared on her brow as if she were puzzled, but at last she said:
"My father is a Swede, my mother had Swedish blood in her, and Swedish was the language I learnt first."