"I hope you know me," she said. "I hope you have not forgotten me."
A blank, dismayed look possessed Sophia for a few seconds, and then she put forth two hands which were sheathed half-way up to the elbow in dull-brown gloves, seizing both of Claire's hands the next instant.
"Forgotten you!" she cried. "Why, you're Claire Twining! Of course you are! And as pretty as a picture, just as you always were! Why, you dear old thing! Give me a kiss!"
Claire felt the lips of the speaker forcibly touch each of her cheeks. Sophia still held her hands. The welcome had been too abruptly cordial. A mist slipped before her sight and clouded her brain. She staggered backward....
Perhaps she would have fallen, if the magnificent Michael had not been near enough to place a muscular arm between herself and the floor. But she rallied almost at once. And while clearness was returning to her mind, she heard Sophia say, in imperious yet hearty tones,—
"Michael, take her into the reception-room! Now, don't look so stupid! Do as I say!"
Claire's attack, though more than partly past, still left her weak. She allowed herself to be led, and indeed half supported, by Michael. A little later she was seated on a big, yielding lounge, with the sense of a big, yielding pillow at her back. And presently, close beside her, she saw the ruddy, broad-blown face of Sophia, surmounted by a Parisian bonnet of the most deft and dainty millinery.
"Sophia," she said, breaking into a tremulous, pathetic little laugh, "please don't—please don't think I've lost my senses! But it—it was so good of you to—remember me, after we hadn't met for such a long time, that—that I"—
Here Claire burst into an actual tempest of tears and sobs, and immediately afterward felt Sophia's hands again clasp both her own.
"Michael!" cried her new hostess at the same moment, in tones of imperative command, "for Heaven's sake, don't stand staring there, but do leave the room!"