"This is such a little table; we never use it if there's more than two or three of us; and we like to help ourselves here."
"I like it very much," Alan said.
"Coffee right away or later?"
"Whenever you do. You see," he explained, smiling in a way that pleased her, "I haven't the slightest idea what else is coming or whether anything more at all is coming." A servant entered, bringing cereal and cream; he removed the fruit plates, put the cereal dish and two bowls before Constance, and went out. "And if any one in Blue Rapids," Alan went on, "had a man waiting in the dining-room and at least one other in the kitchen, they would not speak of our activities here as 'helping ourselves.' I'm not sure just how they would speak of them; we—the people I was with in Kansas—had a maidservant at one time when we were on the farm, and when we engaged her, she asked, 'Do you do your own stretching?' That meant serving from the stove to the table, usually."
He was silent for a few moments; when he looked at her across the table again, he seemed about to speak seriously. His gaze left her face and then came back.
"Miss Sherrill," he said gravely, "what is, or was, the Miwaka? A ship?"
He made no attempt to put the question casually; rather, he had made it more evident that it was of concern to him by the change in his manner.
"The Miwaka?" Constance said.
"Do you know what it was?"
"Yes; I know; and it was a ship."