She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil, reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of Mr. Yorke's sons?"
No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.
"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder, superciliously, what would come next.
"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed.
It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence—very artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the youth's nature. It stilled him like a note of music.
Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered perfectly in place.
"I am Martin," he said.
"Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say papa and mamma; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?"
"I suppose so."
"My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?"