"Miss Fielding has told me, Mr. Meredith, that you were abroad two years. Of course you visited England. Did you see Cornwall? My home is there. It is quite a show-place, being very ancient, and having a magnificent picture-gallery."
He said audaciously that he had been in England, and should have gone down to Cornwall to see Lord Ivon's pictures if he could have believed that there was anything on canvas there half as lovely as herself.
Miss Brooke shook her spoon at him in playful reproof, and he continued:
"I spent most of my time, however, at a German university."
Azalia gave an uncontrollable start that jarred the cup in her hand and made the tea splash over a little on her lap.
"How awkward I am!" she said, laughing. "Ah! and so you were a German student, Mr. Meredith?"
"Yes, for a time," he replied. "Not that I cared much for it, but my father was so anxious for it before his death that I went afterward, just because he had wished it—not that I benefited much by it, I fear. My thoughts were full of other things."
Azalia swallowed her tea at a draught in order not to spill any more on her dress. She looked at him then, and said:
"So your father is dead? That is sad. Mine died when I was a very tiny baby. I have often wished that he had lived that I might have known the pleasure of a father's love and care."