"Just as you please, dear, of course."
She was a little surprised that Mr Reynolds asked no questions. She did not know that she had already given him the remaining links of her story, and that the chain in his mind was now practically complete.
All through the lecture on the previous evening, Dudley had wondered vaguely to whom the grand white head belonged, and when the owner of it came up at the close, and told him how much he had enjoyed the evening, Dudley felt the compliment much more keenly than most clever young men would have done. He was drawing sufficiently near the farther boundary of youth to dread the advance of age; and his love and admiration for Mrs Hamilton made a warm corner in his heart for all old people.
He arrived early on the evening of his appointment, and knocked at the door with a good deal of pleasant anticipation. The Reynolds seemed to have brought with them to London the atmosphere of their country home. The room was sweet with old-fashioned flowers, tea and fruit and home-made cake were laid out on the spotless cloth, and the windows were opened wide on a world of green. Moreover, the very sight of Mr Reynolds's refined and beautiful face seemed to throw the dust and turmoil of the world outside into the far distance. Petty aims lost half their attraction, the ideal became more real, when one entered that plain little room. "Is this really London?" Dudley said, as he shook hands with the invalid on the sofa.
"I am happy to say it is," she answered, smiling. "London has done great things for me."
"That is right. We hear so much of its misdeeds now-a-days that it is refreshing to be brought in contact with the other side of the question."
In a few minutes Lucy came in, bright and smiling. Dudley had not noticed her with her father at the lecture, and her relationship to the saintly old clergyman was as great a surprise to him as it had been to Lady Munro.
"How I wish I had asked Mona to come in!" she exclaimed, as she seated herself in front of the tea-tray.
No one answered, but Mr Reynolds glanced at his visitor's face.
"You know who I mean," Lucy went on, turning to Dudley, "my friend Miss Maclean. You were talking to her for a long time at the Davidsons' the other day. Is not she awfully clever?"