"It's horrid and un-Christian—still, I'm glad. Do you take sugar and cream?"
"Of course."
"Why of course? Some people don't."
"I'm an emphatic person in my likes and dislikes, so I talk that way."
"I don't know what I should have done if you were not here."
"You are too charitable. It is my being here that has caused all the worry."
"No, I cannot take that view. There are happenings in life which, at the hour, seem to be the outcome of mere chance, but one realizes later that they were inevitable as autumn after spring."
"What a libel on our English climate," he laughed. "Is there no summer, then? What about this present glorious revel of sunshine? Charles the Second, who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, remarked one day that, in his opinion, England possessed the best climate in the world, because no day was too hot or too cold to prevent a man from going out of doors. I've seen more of the world, geographically speaking, than his kingship, yet I agree with him."
"My father——" she began, but choked suddenly.
"Tell me this, Meg: how long is it since you last saw your father?" he demanded, well knowing the futility of any attempt to divert her mind from a topic which must surely occupy it to the exclusion of all else.