Certainly had she so designed it, Edith could have found no better way and opportunity of making an excellent first impression upon the somewhat simple mind of her cousin Rupert.
At length the growler lumbered up to the well-remembered door of the little house in Regent’s Park that he had left so many years ago.
“Go in, Rupert, go at once,” said Edith. “Your dear mother is wild to see you. I’ll pay the cab.”
He hesitated a little, then muttering that it was very good of her, gave way, and ran rather than walked up the steps and through the door which the servant had opened at the sound of wheels, up the stairs also, to the drawing-room on the first floor. And here at last, seated in an invalid-chair, her stiff arms outstretched to clasp him, and words of joy and blessing upon her pale lips, he found the beloved mother whom he had not seen for so many years.
“Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen—” she murmured presently, and broke off, for her tears choked her.
Rupert rose from his knees by her side, and turning his head away, said in a gruff voice that he must go to see about the luggage. So down he went to find Edith and the two servants struggling madly with his things which the grumpy cabman had refused to bring in.
“Leave go, Edith,” he said angrily. “How can you? Why did you not call me?”
“Because I wouldn’t interrupt you,” she gasped, “but oh, Rupert, do you pack your boxes full of lead, or are all your savings in them?”
“No,” he answered, “only a couple of stone steles and a large bronze Osiris—an Egyptian god, I mean. Go away, you girls, I will see about them to-morrow; my night things are in the bag.”
They went readily enough, who desired no further acquaintance with the Colonel’s boxes, one down to the kitchen, the other upstairs with the bag, leaving Rupert and Edith alone.