To the man at the foot of the table the situation was perplexing. His niece and nephew, born of wealth and surrounded by abundance, were eating with the eagerness of little pigs; eating as if afraid their plates would be withdrawn before they had had their fill. On the tip of Channing's nose a drop of gravy glistened in the candle-light, and Dorothea was swallowing much too rapidly for health.
Looking up, she caught her uncle's eye and leaned back in her chair.
Hands on her breast and eyes half closed, she sighed regretfully.
"I'm full already, and we're not half through," she said, and
beckoned to the butler, who came closer. "What kind of salad is it,
Timkins, and is there mayonnaise on it or that thin stuff?"
Timkins coughed slightly behind his hand. "It's mushrooms and white grapes with mayonnaise, I think, Miss, but—"
Dorothea's eyes closed tightly. "Just my luck. I've never tasted it but once, and it's perfectly grand, Uncle Winthrop. Mother had it for lunch the day that scraggy-looking woman and her daughter were here from London. Mother said she was Lady somebody, but our cook is much nicer-looking on Sundays. She didn't eat her salad."
"You ate it." Channing's fork was pointed accusingly at Dorothea.
"You licked the plate."
"I certainly did." Dorothea stood up, shook herself, sat down again, and carefully arranged her knife and fork. "We were in the pantry. Antoinette was ill and Timkins let us come in. You see, Uncle Winthrop, it's this way. We are scientifics, Channing and I. We've been brought up on a book, and we don't get enough to eat. Mother says everything has been learned out of science now—I mean about how much children can eat, and how much they can drink, and how much air they can sleep in, and how to breathe right, and Antoinette says when we were little we used to be weighed every day. And that's why we stuff so when we get a chance. I'm ten, going on eleven."
"And I'm seven, going on eight"—Channing had not yet yielded the turkey in sight for the salad to come, and his fork was still being steadily applied—"and all we have for supper—"
"Is bread and milk." Dorothea's hand waved silence to Channing. "Antoinette says the milk is magnificent, but I'd rather have something with more taste that isn't so grand. I wish I'd been born before all this science had been found out. If we sneeze we have to be sprayed, and if we cough we're sterilized or something, and the only word in the English language Antoinette pronounces right is germs! You'd think they were ghosts, the way she lifts her eyes and raises her hands when she says it. And she don't know what they are, either. Did you kiss me when I was a baby, Uncle Winthrop?"
"I did."
"In the mouth?"