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 him dream dreams. Laura gave an inarticulate murmur of compassion. She knelt by him, and held his hands in hers and stroked them. "What is it, Papa dear, have you had a little dream? Poor darling," she said, "he has such horrid ones." Mr. Gunning looked about him, still alarmed, still surrounded as in his dream, by appalling presences. He was a little man, with a weak, handsome face, worn and dragged by emotion. "What's all this? What's all this?" he reiterated, until out of the throng of presences he distinguished dimly a woman's form. He smiled at it. He was almost wide awake now. "Is it Rose?" he said. "No, Papa. It's Nina." Mr. Gunning became dejected. If it had been Rose she would have sat beside him and talked to him a little while.