Mrs. Ross welcomed him very nicely.

'Audrey tells me that I am to have another son,' she said softly, as she held out her hand to him.

'If you will only let me be one,' he returned gratefully, as he carried the soft motherly hand to his lips.

Audrey might be forgiven if she regarded Cyril's behaviour as perfect.

As for Mrs. Ross, the tears started to her eyes at that act of reverential homage. She told Audrey afterwards that she felt as though she could have kissed him.

'What a pity you did not! I think Cyril would have liked it,' was Audrey's quiet answer.

She heard her mother inviting him to dinner as she turned to the tea-table, for the afternoon was nearly over. 'We shall be just by ourselves, Mr. Blake.'

'Will you call me Cyril now?' he asked in almost a whisper, and a blush came to Mrs. Ross's comely face.

'I will try and remember,' she said, in the kindest possible voice; and then he joined Audrey at the tea-table, and made himself very busy in waiting on them both, and they were soon as easy and comfortable as possible.

'Would you like my mother to come and see you to-morrow?' he asked presently, when lamps had been brought in and the October twilight had been excluded; 'that will be the correct thing, will it not, Mrs. Ross?'

'I suppose so,' she a.s.sented; but Audrey, with her usual impulsiveness, interrupted her:

'Why should you not take me across now?' she said; 'I think it is so stupid thinking about etiquette. Your mother is older than I, and it is for me to go to her.' Audrey spoke with decision, and Cyril looked enchanted.

'I did not like to propose it,' he said delightedly; 'will you really come? May I take her, Mrs. Ross?'

But Audrey did not wait for her mother's permission. She left the room, and returned presently in her hat and jacket.

'I am quite ready,' she said, speaking from the threshold; but she smiled as she said the words. Was she interrupting an interesting conversation? Cyril was on the couch beside her mother, and he was talking eagerly. Perhaps, though Audrey did not know it, he was making up for his previous self-restraint by pouring out some of his pent-up feelings.

'You understand?' he said as he stood up, and Mrs. Ross beamed at him in answer.

'Are you two having confidences already?' observed Audrey happily, as she looked on at this little scene; and Cyril laughed as he followed her into the hall.

'She is the sweetest woman in the world but one,' he said, as they went out together into the soft damp air; and Audrey, perhaps in grat.i.tude for these words, took his arm unasked as she walked with him through the dark village street.

CHAPTER XXV

MR. HARCOURT SPEAKS HIS MIND

'It is idle to _talk_ a young woman in love out of her pa.s.sion.

Love does not lie in the ear.'--HORACE WALPOLE.

Mrs. Blake was expecting them--had been expecting them for hours; Audrey could see that in a moment. The October evenings were chilly, and most people in Rutherford lighted a fire at sundown; so a clear little fire burnt in the drawing-room grate, and Mrs. Blake's favourite lamp with the pink shade cast a rosy glow over the little tea-table. The cups were ranged in due order, and some hot cakes were on the bra.s.s trivet, but the little tea-maker was not at her usual post. Only Mrs. Blake was standing alone in the middle of the room, and as Cyril led Audrey to her she threw her arms round the girl with almost hysterical violence. 'Oh, my dear, dear, dearest girl!' she exclaimed, pressing her with convulsive force; and Audrey felt a little embarra.s.sed.

'I thought you would be looking for us,' she said, releasing herself gently; 'I asked Cyril to bring me--it seemed the right thing.'

'No, dear, it was not the right thing,' returned Mrs. Blake, almost solemnly; 'it was for me to come to you. But all the same, I knew Cyril would bring you; my boy would remember his mother even in his happiness.'

'It was not my thought,' began Cyril; but a very sweet look from Audrey checked him.

'What does it matter whose thought it was?' she said, in her direct way; 'if I asked him to bring me, it was because I knew it was what he wished, though he did not like to ask me. Dear Mrs. Blake, was it likely that I should stay away when we have always been such friends?'

For a moment Mrs. Blake seemed unable to answer. Some curious emotion impeded her utterance. She turned very pale and trembled visibly.

'And we shall be better friends than ever now,' continued Audrey, taking her hand, for she felt very tender towards the beautiful woman who was Cyril's mother.

'I trust so,' returned Mrs. Blake in a low voice; but there was a melancholy gleam in her large dark eyes. Then, with an effort to recover her usual manner: 'Audrey, I hope you have forgiven me for troubling you so yesterday. You must not expect me to say I am sorry, or that I repent a word that I said then; but all the same, I was rather hard on you.'

'You certainly made me very wretched.'

'Yes, I felt I was very cruel; but one cannot measure one's words at such a moment. I felt as though my children and I were being driven out of our paradise.'

'And you thought it was my fault?' but Audrey blushed a little as she asked the question.

'Oh, hush!' and Mrs. Blake glanced at her son with pretended alarm; 'do you know that in spite of all I had done for him, that ungrateful boy actually presumed to lecture me. He would have it that I had been cruel to you, and that no one but a woman would have taken such a mean advantage; but all the time he looked so happy that I forgave him.

"All's well that ends well." That is what I told him.'

Cyril shook his head. Even in his happiness he had been unable to refrain from uttering his disapproval of his mother's tactics. His nature was almost as simple and transparent as Audrey's. It hurt him to remember how his mother had appealed to this girl's sense of compa.s.sion.

'Do not let us talk any more of it,' he said quickly. 'I think Audrey has a great deal to forgive; but you and I, mother, know her generosity.'

And the look that accompanied these words left Audrey silent for a moment.

'Where is Mollie?' she exclaimed presently, when, after a little more conversation, Mrs. Blake insisted that she must have just one cup of tea. In vain Audrey protested that they had had tea already at Woodcote, that in another hour or so they would have to dine. Mrs. Blake could not be induced to let them off.

'Where is Mollie?' she continued; 'may I go and look for her, Mrs.

Blake?'

But before Mrs. Blake could answer, Audrey had exchanged a glance with Cyril and disappeared.

She found Mollie in the dining-room; she was pacing up and down the room with a small black kitten in her arms, but the moment Audrey appeared the kitten was discarded, and flung upon four trembling, sprawling legs, and Mollie sprang towards her, almost overwhelming her with her girlish vehemence.

'Oh, Miss Ross, my dear Miss Ross! is it really true? Cyril said so this morning, but I could not believe him; I must hear it from your own lips.'

'Do you mean, is it true that I hope one day to become your sister? Of course it is true, dear Mollie.'

'Oh, I am so glad! I am more than glad; I have been crying with joy half the day. But is he good enough for you, Miss Ross?' gazing at her idol with intense anxiety. 'I am very fond of Cyril--Kester and I think there is no one like him--but it does not seem as though anyone were quite good enough for you.'

'Oh, Mollie, what nonsense! but I am not going to believe you; and what do you mean by calling me Miss Ross, you silly child? Don't I tell you we are going to be sisters?'

Mollie, who had been rubbing her cheeks against her friend in a fondling, kittenish sort of way, started back in a moment.

'But I could not call you anything else,' she returned, becoming crimson with shyness. 'You will always be Miss Ross to me--my Miss Ross, you know; I could not think of you as anyone else. It would be such a liberty to call you by your Christian name.'

'Well, never mind; it will come naturally by and by,' returned Audrey tranquilly. 'I shall know you are fond of me, whatever you choose to call me; so you and Kester can do as you like.'