As soon as both were seated, Mrs. Yorke said:
“I understand you have called to see my daughter?”
“Yes. Perhaps she has mentioned my name to you some time?”
“She has. She has often spoken of you. But she didn’t tell me that you were coming here.”
Hammond bit his lip.
“You mean, she told you that I was not coming—that she had discouraged me from visiting her?”
“No, no; I didn’t mean that,” Mrs. Yorke stammered. “I am sure that there is no one whom my daughter would be more pleased to see here than you, if she received any visitors at all outside our friends in the neighborhood. But she has made it a fixed rule not to invite any of the acquaintances she makes on the stage to come here.”
Hammond listened to this explanation with a feeling of relief. It was something to find that if he were excluded the exclusion was not personal to him.
“Please deal frankly with me, Mrs. Yorke,” he said. “If you think Miss Yorke would consider my visit an intrusion, tell me so, and I will go away before she comes.”
“Not an intrusion; that is scarcely the word. But I am afraid she will be disturbed at finding you here.”