Hennessey had left the door open and she could hear a confused noise from the hall, the sound of luggage being brought in, the bustle of servants and a murmur of voices.
Then a voice that made her start.
“Thanks, I can carry it myself.”
It was the newcomer’s voice, he was being conducted to his room by Hennessey. It was a cheerful, youthful voice, not in the least suggestive of Uncle Sam with the goatee beard as depicted by the unimaginative artist of Punch. And it was a voice she had heard before, so she fancied, but where, she could not possibly tell—nor did she bother to think, dismissing the idea as a fancy.
She stood listening, but heard nothing more, only the wind that had risen and was shaking the ivy outside the windows.
Byrne, the old manservant, came in and lit the lamps and then after a few minutes Hennessey entered. He looked cheerful.
“He seems all right and he’ll be down in a minute,” said the lawyer; “not a bit of harm in him, though I haven’t had time to tackle him over money affairs.”
“How old is he?” asked the girl.
“Old! Why, he’s only a boy, but he’s got all a man’s ways with him—he’s American, they’re like that. I’ve heard say the American children order their own mothers and fathers about and drive their own motor-cars and gamble on the Stock Exchange.” He pulled out his watch and looked at it; it pointed to ten minutes past seven; then he lit a cigar and sat smoking and smoking without a word whilst Phyl sat thinking and staring at the fire. They were seated like this when the door opened and Byrne shewed in Mr. Pinckney.
Hennessey had called him a boy. He was not that. He was twenty-two years of age, yet he looked only twenty and you would not have been particularly surprised if you had been told that he was only nineteen. Good-looking, well-groomed and well-dressed, he made a pleasant picture, and as he came across the room to greet Phyl he explained without speaking what Mr. Hennessey meant about “all the manners of a man.”