“I ought to apologize for being here,” she began.
“Say, don't, please!” he interrupted. “What I feel is, that it ought to be up to me to apologize for being here.”
She was really quite flurried and distressed.
“Oh, please, Mr. Temple Barholm!” she fluttered, proceeding to explain hurriedly, as though he without doubt understood the situation. “I should of course have gone away at once after the late Mr. Temple Barholm died, but—but I really had nowhere to go—and was kindly allowed to remain until about two months ago, when I went to make a visit. I fully intended to remove my little belongings before you arrived, but I was detained by illness and could not return until this morning to pack up. I understood you were in the park, and I remembered I had left my knitting-bag here.” She glanced nervously about the room, and seemed to catch sight of something on a remote corner table. “Oh, there it is. May I take it?” she said, looking at him appealingly. “It was a kind present from a dear lost friend, and—and—” She paused, seeing his puzzled and totally non-comprehending air. It was plainly the first moment it had dawned upon her that he did not know what she was talking about. She took a small, alarmed step toward him.
“Oh, I BEG your pardon,” she exclaimed in delicate anguish. “I'm afraid you don't know who I am. Perhaps Mr. Palford forgot to mention me. Indeed, why should he mention me? There were so many more important things. I am a sort of distant—VERY distant relation of yours. My name is Alicia Temple Barholm.”
Tembarom was relieved. But she actually hadn't made a move toward the knitting-bag. She seemed afraid to do it until he gave her permission. He walked over to the corner table and brought it to her, smiling broadly.
“Here it is,” he said. “I'm glad you left it. I'm very happy to be acquainted with you, Miss Alicia.”
He was glad just to see her looking up at him with her timid, refined, intensely feminine appeal. Why she vaguely brought back something that reminded him of Ann he could not have told. He knew nothing whatever of types early-Victorian or late.
He took her hand, evidently to her greatest possible amazement, and shook it heartily. She knew nothing whatever of the New York street type, and it made her gasp for breath, but naturally with an allayed terror.
“Gee!” he exclaimed whole-heartedly, “I'm glad to find out I've got a relation. I thought I hadn't one in the world. Won't you sit down?” He was drawing her toward his own easy-chair. But he really didn't know, she was agitatedly thinking. She really must tell him. He seemed so good tempered and—and DIFFERENT. She herself was not aware of the enormous significance which lay in that word “different.” There must be no risk of her seeming to presume upon his lack of knowledge.