"Come."
Taking the brief-case into his own hands, he left Tom nothing to do but follow him. Diagonally crossing the hall, Tom noticed that the hum of voices had died down. Without knowing why he nerved himself for a test.
The test came at once. Whitelaw, having preceded him into the room, had carried his brief-case to a table, and at once went to work on the contents. Perhaps he did this purposely, to throw Tom on his own resources. In any case, it was on his own resources that he felt himself thrown the instant he appeared on the threshold. He judged from the face of anguish and protest which Mrs. Whitelaw turned on him that he was not expected. Dimly he perceived that Tad and Lily were in the room, and some one else whom as yet he hadn't time to see. All his powers were focused on the meeting of the woman who was not his mother, and didn't want him there.
He thought quickly. He would be on the safest side. He had come there as a clerk; as a clerk shown in among the family he would conduct himself. He bowed to Mrs. Whitelaw, who let him take her hand, though that too seemed to suffer at his touch; he bowed to Lily; he nodded respectfully to Tad. He turned to salute distantly the other person in the room, and found her coming towards him.
He knew her free swinging motion before he had time to see her face.
"Oh, Tom!"
"Why, Hildred!"
Her manner was the protecting one he had often seen in other years, when she thought he might be hurt, or be ignorant of small usages. She was subtle, tactful, and ready, all at once.
"Come over here." She drew him to a seat on a sofa, beside herself. "Mrs. Whitelaw won't mind, will you, Mrs. Whitelaw? You know, Tom and I are the greatest friends—have been for years."
He forgot everyone else who was present in the joy and surprise of seeing her. "When did you come? Why didn't you let me know?"