She and Mr. Eaton did not meet again till the dinner-bell summoned them to the long, lonely dining-room. He was standing behind one of the two chairs Liny had placed at opposite sides of the little square table. He made a slight motion, which she misunderstood, for her to take the chair upon which his hand rested. She rather shyly walked toward the other side, and he quickly stepped around and drew out that chair for her, waiting with grave, old-fashioned courtesy to take his own seat till she was comfortably settled in hers. It was all very embarrassing to Marion. She colored distressingly, but Mr. Eaton, whose manners were always charming, talked to her so entertainingly that she was soon smiling and enjoying the cosy dinner with him very much.
“What would you have done if I had not come?” he asked, after Liny had put the dessert on the table and left the room.
“I should have been very lonely, and I don’t believe I could have eaten any dinner.”
“I have enjoyed my dinner far more for having you to eat it with me, but it would be affectation for me to say that I couldn’t eat without company, for I took every meal alone for two months in an African hut and had a very fair appetite on some very peculiar diet.”
“O, what made you stay so long in that kind of a place?” said Marion, adding, as she remembered he had been a missionary, “Did you stay because you thought it was your duty?”
“I felt that it was my duty to get away as soon as I possibly could, for I had strong reasons for supposing that I was only fed, watched, and tended by my black captors to keep me in order for a certain annual ceremonial which was considered a very poor show indeed unless a few captives were sacrificed to lend éclat to the occasion.”
“I don’t think I liked any part of it except the escape. That will always be a gratifying remembrance.”
“Lily said you told lovely stories,” said Marion.
“Lily Dart, if it is she you mean, is a great friend of mine, and a person with an insatiable thirst for stories. But I don’t propose to inflict one on you now.”