Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/106

Rh when you caught my arm I thought you were. . . Oh, it was really too overwhelming."

"Have another cup of tea," said Jane, with sudden and not too overwhelming tact. She felt that she must speak before her own silence and Lucilla's had time to become embarrassing. "And those little fat cakes are quite good, do try one." To herself she was saying: "This is what comes of making friends with strangers. How awful! But how frightfully thrilling too! Prison! Just out of it, I expect! That's why he can't get work. How dreadful for him!"

She looked across the table at the thin face of the young man, at his fair hair, with the one long lock that would drop over his blue eyes—at his thin, delicate mouth and finely-cut chin. How dreadful it was that a young man—such a young man—should have every gate closed to him, should be unable to get back into honesty, just because he had been in prison—perhaps not for anything very bad. She was sure that with that face he had not done anything very bad. She must say something, or he would see that he had let out about his having been in prison, and then he would get up and go, and they would never be able to help him. And Jane felt that they must help him. Fate had thrown him and them together in such a very marked manner; it was as if Fate meant them to help him. And they would. She must think of a way. But also she must speak again, for the young man had only said, "Thank you," for the cup of tea, and Lucilla's silence was becoming monumental.

"What sort of work were you looking for?" Jane asked gently.

"Anything," he said, "but I'd rather not go into an office. I feel as though I could not endure the confinement after"

"I understand," Jane interrupted, "but what would you like to do, if you had your choice—what do you think you do best?"

He laughed and put back that lock of hair.

"I think I write verses best," he said, "and sometimes