The man of the world was nonplussed. Give up the chase he would not; but before this inflexible determination he was powerless. At last a bright thought struck him:—
“If I were to bring my two girls up, now, would you see them? They are hardly more than children, and are still at school. But I should like you to know them. And I should like them to know you, to have before them the example of a noble woman and a devoted wife.”
Audrey was conquered. She could hardly refuse such a request as this.
“I should be very happy to see them,” she said gently. “But wait, oh, do please wait a little. To see two happy girls now—would—would——” The tears were so near that she had to collect herself—“would be more than I could bear,” she ended in a whisper.
A week later, therefore, Mr. Candover called at the flat one afternoon, bringing with him two shy schoolgirls, still in the awkward stage between childhood and womanhood, though the elder was a tall, well-developed girl whose hair had just been “put up” to celebrate her eighteenth birthday.
She was a bright-faced girl, this Pamela, with irregular features, little twinkling, merry dark eyes, and manners half-shy, half-hoydenish, but rather sweet.
Babs, the younger girl, was rather silent, rather slow. But the pretty features and fair hair promised to develop into great beauty by-and-by.
Both girls had evidently been told enough to interest them in their beautiful hostess, as poor Audrey felt with a pang. And their shy looks and gently subdued voices cut her to the quick, making her feel indeed that she was lonely with a deeper loneliness than that of a widow, for was not Gerard going through worse than death?
Audrey hoped to dispose of her task as hostess within an hour, but as they all stayed on she presently felt compelled to ask them to stay and dine with her, an invitation which was accepted with so much readiness that she perceived at once that this was the end Mr. Candover had had in view.
She felt rather ashamed of her vague mistrust of this amiable and kind friend when, the girls being engaged at the piano in a “brilliant” duet which afforded a perfect cover for conversation, he said to her in a low voice full of feeling:—