“I couldn’t quite say.”
“The milk turning sour?”
“No.”
“Life in general?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah—so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don’t you think so?”
“It is—now you put it that way.”
“All the same, I shouldn’t have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do?”
She maintained a hesitating silence.
“Come, Tess, tell me in confidence.”