Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair.
"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?"
He shook his head.
"Ah! well"—she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty.
"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily.
"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different voice, "Is this your sitting-room"—she looked round it—"or—or your kitchen?"
The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his feelings.
Mason jumped up.
"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire."
And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place struck her.