“It wasn’t slops that made her sick,” replied Billie indignantly. “It was the sight of—of so—much——”
“Coarse food?” he finished.
Billie nodded.
“And just as I’d got her to order a poached egg on toast, too! It’s a perfect shame. It was that smelly fish that did the business.”
“Smelly?” echoed the stranger smiling. His face was as round and merry as the harvest moon. “Why, I always loved the perfume of finnan haddie. It’s sweeter than rose-geranium to me; a nice old-sea-y fragrance that hangs about a fisherman’s hut on the beach after a good catch.”
“I don’t think I could ever be poetic about that smell,” cried Billie, laughing in spite of herself; “but you must be used to the sea to love even the odor of old fish.”
“Faith, and I am,” answered the stranger with a touch of brogue in the voice. “I was brought up on a rocky coast and lived on the water as much as on the land.”
“Where was that?”
“In Ireland, if you must know.”
“And is your home there still?”