ce
concentration, saw that she was virginity reduced to its last and most
exquisite simplicity.

They had said nothing to each other. Laura, in the wonderful hour of his
coming, could find nothing to say to him. He noticed that she and Nina
talked in low, rapid voices, as if they feared that at any moment the
old man might awake.

Then Laura arose and began to get tea ready, moving very softly in her
fear.

"You'd better let me cut the bread and butter," said Prothero.

Laura let him.

Nina heard them talking over the bread and butter while Laura made the
tea. She saw that his eyes did not follow her about the room, but that
they rested on her when she was not looking.

"You were hard at work when we came," he was saying.

Laura denied it.

"If I may say so, you look as if you'd been at it far too long."

"No. I'm never at it long enough. The bother is getting back to where
you were half-an-hour ago. It seems to take up most of the time."

"Then I oughtn't--ought I--to take up any of it?"

"Oh, please," said Laura, "take it. _I_ can't do anything with it."

She had the air of offering it to him like bread and butter on a plate.

"Time," she said, "is about all we've got here. At any rate there will
be time for tea." She examined the cupboard. "It looks as if time were
about all we were going to have for tea." She explored the ultimate
depth of the cupboard. "I wonder if I could find some jam. Do you like
jam?"

"I adore it."

That was all they said.

"Need you," said Nina to Prothero, "spread the butter quite so thick?"
Even in her agony she wondered how much, at the rate he was spreading
it, would be left for the Kiddy's supper.

"He shall spread it," said the Kiddy superbly, "as thick as ever he
likes."

They called Nina to the table. She ate and drank; but Laura's tea
scalded her; Laura's bread and butter choked her; she sickened at it;
and when she tried to talk her voice went dry in her throat.

And in his chair by the fireside, the old man dropped from torpor to
torpor, apart and unaware of them. When he waked they would have to go.

"Do you think," said Laura, "I'd better wake Papa?"

That was a question which this decided little person had never been able
to decide for herself. It was too momentous.

"No," said Nina, "I think you'd better not."

It was then that Mr. Gunning waked himself, violently; starting and
staring, his pale eyes round with terror; for his sunstroke had made hi