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 waiter came to them: Strawberry jam in a little glass dish, clotted cream, brown and white bread and butter. "The sea is calmer than it was on that day," he said when the waiter went to execute the order.

"The sky is not less blue," Margaret answered, and it seemed as if they were talking in symbols.

"How wonderful it all is!" That was his exclamation, not hers. She was unusually silent, but was glad of the tea when it came, ministering to him and spreading the jam on the bread and butter.

"Let me do it."

"No," she answered. When she drew her veil up a little way to drink her tea one could see that her lips were a little tremulous, not as pink as usual. Gabriel, however, was too supremely happy and content to notice anything. He poured out all his news, all that had happened since she left, little things, chiefly details of paper and paint and the protection of their property from her father and stepmother's destructive generosity.

"It will be all right. I had a chat with Travers." Travers was the foreman of the painters. "He will do nothing but with direct orders from us. The concrete in the basement won't affect the general appearance, we can put back the old boards over it. But I think that might be a mistake although the boards are very interesting, about four times as thick as the modern ones, worm or rat eaten