He was wrapped in an old dressing-gown, and sitting at his table, books open before him, a quill in his hand. It might have been some austere Milton inditing polemics against the Church of Rome.
Durrell had the look of a preoccupied man who suffered interruption grudgingly.
"Well, what is it?"
She closed the door.
"I want to speak to you, father."
He frowned, and laid his pen in the trough of an open book.
"What is it? About the food—or the pots and pans?"
"No. It is about things that have been worrying me."
"Things—things? How loosely you express yourself!"
His impatience stiffened her courage.