"It is fine of you not to cry, dear," she said, stroking the girl's face. "It means a good deal to me to know that my daughter is a thoroughbred—and you are always that, sweetheart. And how superb you have become! What a commotion you and Laura must have made in London! Where is Laura—she is with you, of course?"
"Here I am, Tony dear, as unlosable as the proverbial bad penny," said Laura, entering the room just then and bending over from the other side of the bed and taking her old friend in her arms. "Isn't Louise looking superb? I can say it before her, because the child hasn't a groat's worth of vanity. And she has behaved extraordinarily well. I haven't had to tie her to the bedpost once."
"You are looking dazzling yourself, Laura," said Mrs. Treharne with a little sigh. "Did you know that I always was just a little jealous of you, dear?" and she laughed more merrily than she had for a long time. "Not that I ever had any reason to be, for it was the design of Providence that you should outshine me. You and Louise are to spend hours with me, are you not, telling me of your conquests in Europe? And where is John Blythe?" turning to Louise. "Is he not with you? I judged from your wireless message that—"
"Oh, yes, he returned with us on the steamer, but he remained in New York, mother," Louise put in, a quick flush overspreading her features. "Did you wish to see him? I know he would come if I were to—"
Mrs. Treharne glanced, smiling, at Laura, who returned the smile.
"Would he, dear?" asked Mrs. Treharne. "I haven't the least doubt of it. But there will be time. Later I should like to see him. He has a compelling way." She paused, then added with a smile at Louise: "But he is very lucky, all the same."
Louise, marveling at her mother's penetration in discerning, with so little to go upon, the bond between Blythe and herself, nevertheless was glad that the relationship had thus been read; for there still remained enough of her habitual shyness with her mother to have caused her to shrink slightly from making even so natural and simple a revelation.
Laura left the room presently to attend to the disposal of the arriving baggage, and Louise, removing her hat and travelling wrap, arranged her mother's pillows and then sat beside her on the bed.
"I do not ask you, you see, dear, to try to conceal the fact that you find me so greatly altered," said her mother, holding the girl's hand. "I am ashamed to recall how petulant it used to make me when you seemed to be tracing, with your big, wide eyes, my new wrinkles—which you were not doing at all; I know that now, dear heart."
"When does your doctor come today, mother?" asked Louise, a little haltingly.