And I am inclined to think that Betty Heywood thought so, too, when she came forward to meet him that Thursday evening.
“How glad I am to see you,” she said, with a bright smile of welcome.
As for Allan, he was for the moment tongue-tied. If she had been a vision in her gray travelling-suit, what was she now, clad, as it seemed to him, in a sparkling cloud of purest white? She noticed his confusion, and no doubt interpreted it aright—as what girl would not?—for she went on, without appearing to notice it:
“And I want my mother to know you. Here she is, over here,” and she led the way to a beautiful woman of middle age, who sat in a great chair at one end of the room, the centre of a little court. “Mother, this is Allan West.”
Mrs. Heywood held out to him a hand even smaller and softer than her daughter’s.
“I am glad to know you, my boy,” she said. “Mr. Heywood has spoken so much of you that I feel as though I had known you a long time. Won’t you sit down here by me awhile?”
Betty gave a little nod of satisfaction, and hurried away to meet some other guests, whirling away with her the circle which had been about her mother’s chair. Allan sat down, thinking that he had never heard a voice as sweet as Mrs. Heywood’s.
“We invalids, you know,” she went on, with a little smile, “must be humoured. We can’t go to people, so people must come to us. It’s like Mahomet and the mountain.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” answered Allan, with a shy glance of admiration, “but of the fisherman and the Princess.”
“So you know your Arabian Nights!” said Mrs. Heywood, colouring faintly with pleasure at the compliment. “That is right—every boy ought to know them. But you make me feel a sort of impostor. I have used that reference to Mahomet and the mountain all my life, but I don’t know that I ever really heard the story. Do you know it?”