ere
declarative fact that she is _there_.

"Nancy!"

"No, thanks, mother."

And Nancy in her turn looks once swiftly at her mother, sitting there
at the end of the table like a faded grey sparrow whose feathers make it
uncomfortable. It isn't feathers, though, really--its only Oliver.
Why can't mother get reconciled to Oliver--why _can't_ she--and if
she can't, why doesn't she come out and say so instead of trying to be
generous to Oliver when she doesn't want to while he's there and then
saying mean things when he's away because she can't help it?

"Stanley?"

"Why, no, my dear--no--yes, a few, perhaps--I might reconsider--only a
few, my dear,"--his voice does not do anything as definite as cease--it
merely becomes ineffectual as Mrs. Ellicott heaps his plate. He then
looks at the beans as if he hadn't the slightest idea where they came
from but supposes as long as they are there they must be got away with
somehow, and starts putting them into his mouth as mechanically as if
they were pennies and he a slot-machine.

It is hot in the Ellicotts' dining-room--the butter was only brought
in a little while ago, but already it is yellow mush. There are little
drops on the backs of Mr. Ellicott's hands. Oliver wants to help Nancy
take away the dishes and bring in the fruit--they have started to make a
game out of it already when Mrs. Ellicott's voice enforces order.

"No, Oliver. No, please. Please sit still. It is so seldom we have a
_guest_ that Nancy and I are apt to forget our _manners_--"

Oliver looks to Nancy for guidance, receives it and subsides into his
chair. That's just the trouble, he thinks rather peevishly--if only
Mrs. Ellicott would stop acting as if he were a guest--and not exactly
a guest by choice at that but one who must be the more scrupulously
entertained in public, the less he is liked in private.

The fruit. Mrs. Ellicott apologizing for it--her voice implies that she
is quite sure Oliver doesn't think it good enough for him but that
he ought to feel himself very lucky indeed that it isn't his deserts
instead. Mr. Ellicott absent-mindedly squirting orange juice up his
sleeve. Oliver and Nancy looking at each other.

"Are you the same?" say both kinds of eyes, intent, absorbed with the
wish that has been starved small through the last three months, but now
grows again like a smoke-tree out of a magicked jar, "Really the same
and really loving me and really glad to be here?" But they can get