Lydia did not stir.  She continued with her crystal gaze on this wise man from the East, struggling to get his viewpoint.  There flashed into her mind the thought that perhaps, when she knew him better, he could help her on the Indian question.

“I can’t account for it,” she said.  “I wish I could.  Except for a French Canadian great-grandfather, Mr. Levine’s a New Englander too.”

“New Englander!  Pshaw!  Outside of Lake Shore Avenue and the college there are no New Englanders here.  They are hollow mockeries, unless,” he stared at Lydia through his gold-rimmed glass, “unless you are a reversion to type, yourself.”

Lizzie spoke from the dining-room.  “The chocolate’s all ready, Lydia.”

“Oh, I forgot,” exclaimed Lydia, flying out of the room and returning with a tray of chocolate and cake.  “The cold walk must have made you hungry.”

Willis drew up to the table, and over his cup of chocolate remarked, “Ah—­pardon me if I comment on the wonderful pieces of mahogany you have.”

Lydia set down her cup.  “Why, I hate it!” she cried.

“Hate it!  It’s priceless!  Family pieces?  I thought so!  What delicious cake!  How kind of your mother!  I’d like to meet her, if I may.”

“I made the cake, Professor Willis.  My—­my mother is not living.”

The Harvard man’s stilted manner left him.  He set down his cup hastily.  “Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed.  “I was tactless!  Forgive me!” Again he looked about the room and back at Lydia’s face above the meager dress fashioned the year before from a cheap remnant.  Could a mother’s death, he wondered, have put the look into her eyes and lips he had often surprised there.  “I suppose,” he said finally, “that one might explain you, eventually, if one had the privilege of knowing you long enough, I—­”

Adam chose this moment to yelp at the dining-room door which was barely ajar.

“Adam, be quiet!” roared Amos.  “Liz, did you see my carpet slippers anywhere?” he added in a lower voice.

“I brought you a book,” said Willis.  “Browning’s Dramatic Lyrics.”

“I’d like to read them,” Lydia spoke eagerly, with one ear on the dining-room.

Amos yawned loudly.  “Did you wind the clock, Lizzie?  No?  Well, I will!” Another loud yawn and Amos was heard to begin on the mechanism of the huge old wall clock which wound with a sound like an old-fashioned chain pump.  Lydia set her teeth in misery.

“Yes, you must add Browning to your background,” said the Harvard man, appearing undisturbed by the sounds in the next room.  “Browning is difficult at times but—­” He was interrupted by a great clattering in the dining-room.

“Lizzie!” roared Amos.  “Come here and pull this chair off of me.  The next time Lydia varnishes anything—­”

There was the sound of Lizzie pounding across the floor.  The dining-room door was banged and after that the murmur of Lizzie’s voice and subdued roars from Amos.  Lydia looked at Willis in an agony of embarrassment.