She looked very charming, Maradick thought, as she stood piling the plates on top of one another with most anxious care lest they should break. Several curls had escaped and were falling over her eyes and she raised her hand to push them back; the plates nearly slipped. Maradick, watching her, caught suddenly something that seemed very like terror in her eyes; she was looking across the table at her father. He followed her glance, but Morelli did not seem to have noticed anything. Maradick forgot the incident at the time, but afterwards he wondered whether it had been imagination. “Do be careful and not drop things,” she said, laughing gaily, to Tony. “You seem to have got a great many there; there’s plenty of time, you know.” She was delightful to watch, she was so entirely unconscious of any pose or affectation. She passed into the kitchen singing and Tony followed her laden with plates. “Do you smoke, Mr. Maradick?” said Morelli. “Cigar? Cigarette? Pipe?—Pipe! Good! much the best thing. Come and sit over here.” They drew up their chairs by the window and watched the stars; Miss Minns sat under the lamp sewing. Maradick was a little ashamed of his merriment at dinner; he really didn’t know the man well enough, and a little of his first impression of cautious dislike returned. But Morelli was very entertaining and an excellent talker, and Maradick reproached himself for being unnecessarily suspicious. “You know,” said Morelli, “it’s a great thing to have a home like this. I’ve been a wanderer all my days—been everywhere, you might say—but now I’ve always got this to come back to, and it’s a great thing to feel that it’s there. I’m Italian, you know, on my father’s side, and hence my name; and so it seems a bit funny, perhaps, settling down here. But one country’s the same to me as another, and my wife was English.” He paused for a moment and looked out of the window; then he went on— “We don’t see many people here; when you’ve got a girl to bring up you’ve got to be careful, and they don’t like me here, that’s the truth.” He paused again, as though he expected Maradick to deny it. He had spoken it almost as an interrogation, as though he wanted to know whether Maradick had heard anything, but Maradick was silent. He felt strongly again, as he had felt at the time of their first meeting, that they were hostile to one another. Polite though Morelli was, Maradick knew that it was because of Tony, and not in the least because of himself. Morelli probably felt that he was an unnecessary bore, and resented his being there. It was Tony that he cared about. “That is a very delightful boy,” Morelli said, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. “Have you known him a long while? Quite one of the most delightful people——”