He turned them upon her, and then away, and they were once more grave when he looked back again.

Still, she guessed what that effort had cost him.
"No," he said quietly.

"I did not mean the coffee.

You see, I had never until you came here been used to anything smooth or pretty." Alice Deringham smiled a little, for she understood.

The man, she thought, was willing she should accept the somewhat pointless compliment as the sequence of his former speech, to cover his mistake if he had betrayed more than he thought desirable.