Nance who was starting out with the tray, put it down suddenly.
"How splendid!" she cried. "Which house is it?"
"I don't know, I am sure. But they are going to put a lot of money into doing it over, and Dr. Adair has offered to take entire charge of it. For my part I think it is a great mistake. Just think what that money would mean to our poor mission out in Mukden! These shiftless people here at home have every chance to live decently. It's not our fault if they refuse to take advantage of their opportunities."
"But they don't know how, Mrs. Clarke! If Dr. Adair could teach the mothers--"
Mrs. Clarke lifted her hands in laughing protest.
"My dear girl, don't you know that mothers can't be taught? The most ignorant mother alive has more instinctive knowledge of what is good for her child than any man that ever lived! Mac, dearest, why didn't you eat your grapes?"
"Because I loathe grapes. Nance is going to work them off on an old sick man she knows."
"Some one at the hospital?" Mrs. Clarke asked idly.
"No," said Nance, "it's an old gentleman who lives down in the very place we're talking about. He's been sick for weeks. It's all right about the grapes?"
"Why, of course. Take some oranges, too, and tell the gardener to give you some flowers. The dahlias are going to waste this year. Mac, you look tired!"
"No, I'm not. I feel like a two-year old. Nance thinks perhaps she may go with us after all."
"Of course she will!" said Mrs. Clarke, with a confident smile at the girl. "We are going to be so good to her that she will not have the heart to refuse."
Mrs. Clarke with her talent for self-deception had almost convinced herself that Nance was a fairy princess who had languished in a nether world of obscurity until Mac's magic smile had restored her to her own.
Nance evaded an answer by fleeing to the white and red breakfast-room where the butler was laying the cloth for her dinner. As a rule she enjoyed these tête-à-têtes with the butler. He was a solemn and pretentious Englishman whom she delighted in shocking by acting and talking in a manner that was all too natural to her. But to-night she submitted quite meekly to his lordly condescension.
She ate her dinner in dreamy abstraction, her thoughts on Mac and the enticing prospects he had held out. After all what was the use in fighting against all the kindness and affection? If they were willing to take the risk of her going with them, why should she hesitate? They knew she was poor and uneducated and not of their world, and they couldn't help seeing that Mac was in love with her. And still they wanted her.