“Perhaps you had better be alone?”
She did not know what to say to that. Perhaps she did not know what she wished. Her lip quivered. This was very unlike what she had expected and what she had dreaded. But it was worse. He seemed to be waiting for her answer—that he might go. What could she say?
“Just as you like,” she murmured at last.
“Oh, but I wish to do what you like!” he replied, with a little more warmth; but still awkwardly and with constraint.
“So do I,” she replied.
“I shall stay then,” he answered. And he lifted a small dish from the hearth and carried it to the table. “I had Mrs. Gilson’s orders to keep this hot for you,” he said.
“It was very kind of you.”
“I am afraid,” more lightly, “that it was fear of Mrs. Gilson weighed on me as much as anything.”
He returned to the hearth when he had seen her seated. And she began her breakfast with her eyes on the table. With the first draught of coffee a feeling of warmth and courage ran through her; and he, standing with his elbow on the mantel-piece and his eyes on the mirror, saw the change in her.
“The boy is better,” he said suddenly. “I think he will do now.”