CHAPTER XXIX 435 cake, baked on the top of the oven.
" Eat that now," she said: " you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.
" You are very hungry," he said.
" I am, sir." It is my way-- it always was my way, by instinct-- ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
" It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not immoderately."
" I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.
" No," he said coolly: " when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home."
" That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends."
The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John ' s eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people ' s thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.