"It is so. I asked her to do a chop for me, so that I won't need to dine
on the train...."

"Mercy me! We'll see the fine cook she is!" She ran out to the landing
(she had never known he was so nice). Mr. Philip found that her absence
acted curiously as a relief to an excitement that was beginning to buzz
in his head. Then she came back with the tray, her cheeks bright and her
mouth pursed, for she and the caretaker had been sandpapering each
other's temperaments with a few words. "Be thankful she thought to boil
a potato. No greens. And I had to ask for a bit bread. And the reason's
not far to seek. She's had a drop again. It staggers me how your father,
who's so particular with the rest of us, stands such a body in the
place."

He did not answer her. The moment had become one of pure enjoyment.
There was no sense of strain in his appreciation of her while she was
putting down the tray, spreading out the plates, and doing things that
were all directed to giving him comfort. Their relationship felt
absolutely right.

"Will you have one of the bottles of Burgundy your father keeps for when
he lunches in?" she said.

"I was just thinking I would," he answered, and went into his father's
room. As he stooped before the cupboard her voice reached him,
fortuitously uplifted in "The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away."
Now how did she look when she sang? It improved some people. He knelt
for a minute in front of the dusty cupboard, frowning fiercely at the
bottles because it struck him that she would stop singing when he went