He smiled at her across the table.
"Not at all," she answered primly.
She felt as though the soup must choke her, and glancing towards Godfrey she saw that he too seemed to find it difficult to swallow. His lean brown fingers crumbled the bread upon his plate.
When she rose to bring in the fish, both of them had left their soup half finished. Conversation seemed to be difficult, but silence was quite unendurable. She lifted her eyes from her plate at last.
"Are you staying for long in town?"
"Only to-night. I'm going back to-morrow, thank the Lord. It's a filthy place, isn't it? What on earth makes you girls choose to live here, I don't know."
"Our work's here," remarked Delia-instructed Muriel. "Whatever its disadvantages, it is infinitely preferable to Marshington."
"Don't you like M—Marshington?" he asked simply.
"I loathed it with all my heart and all my soul and all my spirit," declared Muriel fiercely.
He stared at her in amazement that so guileless a creature should show such emphatic disapproval of something that he had always taken quite for granted until two hours ago. To her profound surprise he asked: