Oliver Wick laughed cheerfully as the little lady started back in fright. "That's what I call a nice warm welcome," the young man went on, following her into the hall and hanging up his hat.
"Then she hasn't come? May I come in and wait? I've really come to see her, you know, but I've got a very decent excuse—a note from my mother, saying how delighted we shall be to dine with you on Christmas Eve." He produced a letter and followed his hostess into the drawing-room, carrying something that looked like a small hatbox with great care.
Mrs. Walbridge read the note and expressed her satisfaction at its contents.
"What have you got in that box," she added.
"Flowers for Grisel," he answered promptly. "Beauties. Just look." He raised the lid of his box and showed her an enormous bunch of closely packed Parma violets. "Aren't they lovely?" he asked, beaming with pleasure, "and won't she love them?"
"She will indeed. Let's go upstairs and put them in water, shall we?"
And thus it was that when Griselda Walbridge reached home after having stayed nearly two months with the Freddie Fords at Conroy Hall, Torquay, she found Mr. Wick awaiting her with a curious air of belonging to the household as much, or even more, than she did.
"You're fatter," he said, looking at her critically, his small eyes shut as if she were a picture and he an expert, "and you've got that nasty red stuff on your lips. Oh, fie!"
Mrs. Walbridge watched them happily, as she leant back in Hermione's favourite old chair by the fire. There was something in this friendly, busy youth that she loved. He gave her a safe feeling, and she decided, as she watched his sparring with her daughter, that she would be glad to see Grisel safely married to him. He was poor, she knew, but she had unconsciously accepted his own ideas about his future, and knew that his poverty was merely a temporary thing, and that he was headed straight for power and wealth. Besides, power and wealth were not things that she had ever greatly valued.