“I don’t like to let you⁠—” he began.

“Why not? Because I’m here?”

“No, not that,” he said. “But I went off and left you⁠—”

“Nonsense!” said Marija. “Don’t think about it. I don’t blame you.”

“You must be hungry,” she said, after a minute or two. “You stay here to lunch⁠—I’ll have something up in the room.”

She pressed a button, and a colored woman came to the door and took her order. “It’s nice to have somebody to wait on you,” she observed, with a laugh, as she lay back on the bed.