"I wish you'd get me a cup of tea," he said, suddenly. "I'm just from the sanatorium. I operated on a bad case—and, well, that's sufficient excuse, isn't it, for me to want to drink a cup of tea with you?"
She was busy in a moment with her hospitality.
"Oh, why didn't you tell me? And you're wet." Her hand touched his coat lightly as she passed him.
"The rain came so suddenly that I couldn't get the window of my car closed; it's an awful storm.
"And now," he said, when she had brought the tea on an old Sheffield tray, and had set it on a little folding table which he placed between them on the hearth, "and now let's talk about it."
"Please don't try to make me stay——"
"Why not?"
"Because, oh, because you can't know what I suffer here; it isn't just because I've lost mother, but the people—they all know about her and about Dad, and they aren't nice to me."
"My dear child!"
"Perhaps it's because father was a singer and an Italian, and mother came of good old Puritan stock. They seem to think she lowered herself by marrying him. They can't understand that though he was unkind to her, he belonged to an aristocratic Venetian family——"