“Good morning. You’re out early.”
“Good morning. Yes. We’ve just been down to the post-office to send off a telegram, haven’t we, George?”
She entered the hall, the boy following, and shook hands, meeting Edwin’s gaze fairly. Her esteem for him, her confidence in him, shone in her troubled, candid eyes. She held herself proudly, mastering her curious constraint. “Now just see that!” she said, pointing to a fleck of black mud on the virgin elegance of her pale brown costume. Edwin thought anew, as he had often thought, that she was a distinguished and delightful piece of goods. He never ceased to be flattered by her regard. But with harsh masculine impartiality he would not minimise to himself the increasing cleft under her chin, nor the deterioration of her once brilliant complexion.
“Well, young man!” Edwin greeted the boy with that insolent familiarity which adults permit themselves to children who are perfect strangers.
“I thought I’d just run in and introduce my latest nephew to you,” said Janet quickly, adding, “and then that would be over.”
“Oh!” Edwin murmured. “Come into the drawing-room, will you? Maggie’s upstairs.”
They passed into the drawing-room, where a servant in striped print was languidly caressing the glass of a bookcase with a duster. “You can leave this a bit,” Edwin said curtly to the girl, who obsequiously acquiesced and fled, forgetting a brush on a chair.
“Sit down, will you?” Edwin urged awkwardly. “And which particular nephew is this? I may tell you he’s already raised a great deal of curiosity in the town.”
Janet most unusually blushed again.
“Has he?” she replied. “Well, he isn’t my nephew at all really, but we pretend he is, don’t we, George? It’s cosier. This is Master George Cannon.”