His voice lingered on the beloved name, beloved, consciously, since so few hours.
But Aunt Freddy was not apt to perceive fine shades, and she was, moreover, occupied with the framing of a warning.
"You know that Cousin Dick is a good deal changed since you saw him?" she began. "He had a sort of heart attack about a year ago—Dr. Mangan was with him, luckily. They have to try and keep him very quiet, and the worst of it is that so little puts him out."
"Well, I shan't put him out, shall I?" said Larry, confidently, beginning on a third slice of cake, love not having, so far, impaired his appetite.
"He was fearfully put out about your selling to the tenants. He said young Mangan had no right to advise you to sell so low. He told me that even Dr. Mangan was quite against his doing so."
Miss Coppinger regarded her nephew with anxiety. After four years of absence, one never knew exactly how much a young man might not have changed. That little, upturned, golden moustache might not by any means be the whole of it. The ice barrier had been forgotten in the excitement of his return, but even though she understood—and tried not to feel that the fact had its mitigations—that all young men in France were atheists, that other fact remained, that next Sunday, when she started for Knock Ceoil church, Larry, if he went anywhere, would go to the white chapel on the hill. Aunt Freddy was afraid of no one where she believed herself to be right (and the Spirit of the Nation had long since assured her of this in matters of religion); least of all was she afraid of "a brat of a boy," whom, as she boasted, she had often whipped soundly when he deserved it. But, unfortunately, the brat had her heart in his hands, and her heart was softer than Aunt Freddy knew; and this gave the brat an unfair advantage.
"Then you know, Larry," she continued, her eyes showing what her firm mouth did not admit; "you know, my dear boy, it was rather—well, rather a shock to us to see in the papers your name proposed as the Nationalist candidate here. It upset Dick very much, and, I must say," she added, unflinchingly, "me too!"
Larry put down the third piece of cake, half-finished, and went round the tea-table, and sitting on the arm of Frederica's chair, put his arm round her thin shoulders.
"I'm so sorry!" he said, knowing his power, and using it, "dear Auntie Fred! I ought to have written to you. I forgot all about the beastly thing. But you wouldn't want me to go back of my word? As for the property—well, I thought that was only my own affair. I've come all right out of it; why shouldn't I give the tenants the best terms I could?"
"Cousin Dick says——" began Frederica, standing to her guns.