Bunny's quick cry of "Charlie!" fully justified this attitude, and Mrs. Lovelace withdrew with a very greatly enhanced opinion of the importance of the Brian family.
"He might have been greeting his own brother," she said to herself, as she trotted back to her kitchen.
There was certainly no cordiality lacking in Bunny's reception of the visitor. He clung to Lord Saltash's hand with shining eyes upraised.
"I say, what a bounder you are to have stayed away all this time! I thought you'd have come back long ago. Maud's married. I suppose you know?"
"Married to Jake Bolton?" There was a peculiar intonation in the question. Lord Saltash was smiling as he uttered it, smiling with drawn brows.
"Yes; and he's the best of good fellows. But I wanted her to wait for you all the same," said Bunny, with the candour of the confidant. "It was no good talking though. She couldn't wait."
"How long has she been married?" Lord Saltash's tone was settling into studied indifference.
"Only a few days," Bunny told him. "Only since Sunday."
"Was it so urgent as that then? She isn't generally in such a desperate hurry."
Bunny looked uncomfortable. "You see, it was that brute of a Sheppard at 'The Anchor.' The mater married him, you know. Thought she was going to do a good thing for us all. I think it has turned out all right so far as she is concerned. But he was a perfect beast to Maud and me."