"No thank you, Mrs. Ellicott." Oliver manages to look at her politely
enough as he speaks but then his eyes go straight back to Nancy and stay
there as if they wished to be considered permanent attachments. All Oliver
has been able to realize for the last two hours is the mere declarative
fact that she is _there_.
"Nancy!"
"No, thanks, mother."
And Nancy in her turn looks once swiftly at her mother, sitting there at
the end of the table like a faded grey sparrow whose feathers make it
uncomfortable. It isn't feathers, though, really--its only Oliver. Why
can't mother get reconciled to Oliver--why _can't_ she--and if she can't,
why doesn't she come out and say so instead of trying to be generous to
Oliver when she doesn't want to while he's there and then saying mean
things when he's away because she can't help it?
"Stanley?"
"Why, no, my dear--no--yes, a few, perhaps--I might reconsider--only a few,
my dear,"--his voice does not do anything as definite as cease--it merely
becomes ineffectual as Mrs. Ellicott heaps his plate. He then looks at the
beans as if he hadn't the slightest idea where they came from but supposes
as long as they are there they must be got away with somehow, and starts
putting them into his mouth as mechanically as if they were pennies and he
a slot-machine.
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