“Here, I’ll go down and see what he’s like. It may be some impostor.”
He had reached the door when Gertrude flushed up, and seemed in her decisive action to have changed from girl to woman.
“Stop, Mr Harrington!” she said; “this would not be the way to welcome my poor dead guardian’s grandson, and I think it is due to me that you should refrain.”
“What!” he cried, staggered for the moment by her manner and bearing, as she crossed to a writing-table. “Nonsense, girl; you know nothing of the ways of the world. I’ll meet this man, and see what he is like.”
Gertrude took no notice, but wrote two telegrams, and handed them to the housekeeper.
“Send them at once,” she whispered, and she turned to the door, where Saul’s hand was raised to stop her, but there was a low growl from close at hand, Saul started and shrank away, leaving the door free; but before Gertrude was half way to the room, with the dog close at her heels, Saul had followed, and entered the dining-room just as the keen-looking, sun-browned, and well-dressed man, who had stood gazing at old Harrington’s portrait, turned quickly and advanced to meet the agitated girl.
“How do you do?” he said, in a sharp decisive way, as he held out both hands, Gertrude placing hers within them, to be retained, as the stranger looked at her searchingly, and evidently with satisfaction. “There you need not tell me,” he continued, “you’re Gertrude, I know. I say, quite a shock to me to come back too late. That’s the old man, I suppose?”
He nodded towards the portrait as, without moving her eyes from his, Gertrude replied:
“Yes, that is uncle’s—I mean dear guardian’s portrait.”
“Like him?”