“Stay!... No, never mind! I’ll ask Mamma myself.” Austin opened the gate, mounted it, and swung out with it into the roadway. From this convenient perch he fixed a steady and observant gaze on the figure of the unwelcome visitor.
“We might have said good-bye to him?” queried Frances in a shaking voice.
“Perhaps—if we’d meant it,” returned Austin carelessly. “Frances, I’m going to Mamma. You come too.”
So Austin led the way. Mrs. Morland had already sent a servant to look for her children, and they met the man on the steps.
In the drawing-room Austin put his questions straight.
“Jim East has been here, hasn’t he, Mater? He has been telling Frances and me queer things. Are they true?”
“How am I to know what he has told you, my darling?” asked Mrs. Morland diplomatically.
“He told you too, didn’t he? He said he was our brother.”
“Your half-brother, dearest,” corrected Mrs. Morland gently. “A mixed relationship merely. You need not remember it.”
“Is it true? Is he our father’s son?”