He could not but start at this. But now he was guarding his tongue. And, as he reflected, there came back to him the vague memory of a face in church, followed by the sharper picture of a very young girl at the piano in a pleasant room—the last that he had ever been in.
Gwynneth had recalled the same scene, and could see him as he had been, while she gazed upon him as he was.
"I remember," he said, gravely. "So you take an interest in this little chap, Miss Gleed?"
"Rather more than that," replied Gwynneth, taken out of herself in an instant, and declaring her innocence by her sudden and unconscious enthusiasm. "I love him dearly," she said from her heart: and together their eyes returned to the round sailor hat, the brown pinafore and the browner legs which were all that was now to be seen of Georgie the engrossed.
"He is indeed a dear little fellow," said Carlton, smothering his sighs.
"And so affectionate!" added Gwynneth, thinking of the strange pair together as she had found them.
"Marvellously independent, too, for his age."
"He is not quite four. You would think him older."
"Indeed I would . . . And so you are his 'lady'!"
"So he insists on calling me."