But how difficult it was to know what to say!
Dorinda went to her own room and read.
She seldom slept after luncheon as it seemed such a waste of time.
‘There will be plenty of time to sleep on the voyage home,’ she told herself dismally.
Instead she read some books that she had found in a very comprehensive library that Maximus Kirby had built into the new part of his house.
If she had not already known how wide his interests were, she would have been aware of it from the books that he had chosen.
They ranged from histories of the East to biographies from the West, Chinese books of great age, which unfortunately she could not understand, and novels in French which she was able to enjoy for the first time.
Her father had never wanted to ‘waste’ money on books and her grandfather’s c
