"You did," said Melville.
"I have kept my promise," said Mrs. Sinclair. "I wrote to you yesterday and asked you to come to see me. I am Lady Holt."
The astonishment depicted on Melville's face was ludicrous, and Mrs. Sinclair rippled over with mirth.
"I never thought to see you so taken aback," she said. "What I like so much about English gentlemen is that they are so imperturbable, and now you are gazing at me as if I were a freak."
"Really, I beg your pardon," Melville said. "but to think how grossly I have misjudged Sir Geoffrey!"
"Come, that's much better," Mrs. Sinclair replied. "Yes, Mr. Ashley, the confession has to be made; I am your aunt."
"I'm uncommonly delighted to hear it," Melville said heartily, "and I've only one regret in learning the fact."
"And that is——?" his new-found relative enquired.
"That I did not know it long ago," Melville replied. His wonted composure returned, and with it his wonted desire to stand well in the opinion of those in whose company he happened to be—a desire, it may be said, characteristic of many men who drift into bad lives from weakness rather than from natural vice. "Tell me, have you refrained from claiming relationship with me all this time because you heard I was a bad lot?"
"I perceive you are not expert in drawing inferences," Mrs. Sinclair said; "one does not associate the particularly goody-goody type of young man with Monte Carlo, and that is where I saw you first."