"Oh, mother, isn't he delightful?" Maud whispered as she kissed her, and Hermione's face expressed real unselfish sympathy and happiness. And then Grisel, taking her by the hand, smiled over her shoulder.
"Come, John," she said, "this is mother."
The big man stood still in the middle of his advance, a puzzled, queer look in his face, which even looked, she noticed, a little pale.
"Isn't it," he began, and broke off. Then he came up to her and held out his hands. "Surely," he said, slowly, "you used to be Miss Violet Blaine?"
"Yes." She was staring at him with utter amazement, so strange was his manner, and the three young women were also staring.
"What do you mean, John?" Griselda burst out, after a pause that seemed interminable. "What's the matter?"
Then the man laughed, gave himself a little shake and taking Mrs. Walbridge's hand, bent and kissed it with a grace that proved that he had lived long in some Latin country.
"Nothing's the matter," he said, in a pleasant deep voice, "except that I knew your mother over thirty years ago, and I hadn't realised that you were her child."
They all sat down, the three girls chattering in amazed amusement and amused amazement. The two elders said little, and then, when Mrs. Walbridge had been given her cup of tea and drunk a little of it, she looked up with her big clear eyes at the man who was going to marry her daughter.
"It seems very rude," she said gently, "but you know I don't remember you! Are you quite sure you are not mistaken?"