“You mustn’t sit up too late to-night,” she told him. “You are looking very tired.”
He nodded gently.
“All the work I have to do,” he said, “will be finished in an hour. Afterwards I may write a letter while you go in and see your aunt.”
His sudden fit of what was for him almost garrulity, left him and he relapsed into his usual silence, punctuated only by monosyllabic replies to Claire’s remarks. He accompanied her into the garden, however, at the conclusion of the meal, and whilst they sat together over their coffee he asked her an abrupt question.
“How old are you, Claire?”
“Twenty-one,” she told him, “twenty-one last May.”
“You are a sensible girl,” he went on. “When I heard that I was going to have a niece to look after and that she was coming out to China for me to take her to England, I must confess that I was terrified. Such an upheaval in my daily life seemed to me calamitous. I have been agreeably surprised. Your coming has been a pleasure to me, Claire. I only wish that you had come before.”
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. It was the first time he had ever spoken to her in such a fashion.
“I am a poor adviser for a young girl,” he continued, a little regretfully, “and I am afraid that your aunt is hopelessly prejudiced in the matter. I cannot bring myself to believe, however, that the society of this young man, Gregory Ballaston, is a good thing for you. I distrust the family ethics. I cannot help thinking that he is hoping through you to arrive at the information which so far I have refused his father and his uncle.”
“I was with him for several hours to-day, Nunks, and he never even mentioned it,” she ventured. “He is going out to Canada in a month or so to earn his own living.”