"There are yours beside your plate," said Rose, mischievously; "you have, if anything, more than Mr. Nimmo."
She very seldom mentioned Vesper's name. It sounded foreign on her lips, and he usually liked to hear her. This evening he paid no attention to her, and, with a trace of disappointment in her manner, she went away to the kitchen.
After Vesper left the table she came back. "Agapit, the young man is dull."
"I assure thee," said Agapit, in French, and very dictatorially, "he is as gay as he usually is."
"He is never gay, but this evening he is troubled."
Agapit grew uneasy. "Dost thou think he will again become ill?"
Rose's brilliant face became pale. "I trust not. Ah, that would be terrible!"
"Possibly he thinks of something. Where is his mother?"
"Above, in her room. Some books came from Boston in a box, and she reads. Go to him, Agapit; talk not of the dear dead, but of the living. Seek not to find out in what his dullness consists, and do not say abrupt things, but gentle. Remember all the kind sayings that thou knowest about women. Say that they are constant if they truly love. They do not forget."