Eileen shook hands simply, with the usual greetings, but a lovely flood of colour, that she could not control, spread over her face, and was noted with a certain amount of gratification by Lawrence’s experienced eye.
“It’s pleasant to be seeing old friends again,” he said. “May I sit down?”
She moved to make more room for him, and asked at once after his mother and sisters.
“Mother is very well,” he said, “and the girls are full of frocks and hair-dressing. There’s to be a big dance next month, and I suppose I shall have to stay for it.”
“Were you going away again, then?”
“I rarely stay long anywhere,” a little ambiguously.
“Have you decided where to go?”
“Not quite. I shall not decide until a few days before starting, I expect. But how is everybody at The Ghan House? Does his lordship of the rectory hate me as cordially as ever? I see Paddy has not yet managed to get herself transported to a better clime.”
While Eileen replied to his questions, her slender white hands played a little nervously with a flower, and her deep eyes fluttered between the distant mountains and her companion’s face. She felt he was studying her, and knew there was admiration in his eyes, and her heart felt foolishly glad.
“Have we been away three whole years?” he said presently. “How strange! It seems like three months now I am back. Shall I find everyone as unchanged as you, Eileen?”