“Lady Wynde, this is Miss Wynde,” said the gray companion, in her soft, cloying voice.
Neva came forward, frank and sweet, offering her hand to her step-mother. Lady Wynde touched it with two fingers, and stooping, kissed the girl’s forehead.
“You are welcome home, Neva,” she said graciously. “I am glad to see you, my dear. I began to think we should never meet. Why, how tall you are—not at all the little girl I expected to see.”
“I am eighteen, you may remember, Lady Wynde,” returned Neva quietly. “One is not usually very small at that age.”
Her ladyship surveyed her step-daughter with keen scrutiny. She had already heard Artress’ account of the voyage home from Calais, and of Neva’s meeting with Lord Towyn, and she was anxious to form some idea of the girl’s character.
She saw in the first moment that here was not the insipid, “bread-and-butter school girl” she had expected. The frank, lovely face, so bright and piquant, was full of character, and the red-brown eyes bravely uplifted betrayed a soul awake and resolute. Neva’s glances were as keen as her own, and Lady Wynde had an uncomfortable impression that her step-daughter was reading her true character.
“Sit down, my dear,” she said, somewhat disconcerted. “Artress has been telling me about your voyage. Artress is my friend and companion, as I wrote you, and has lived with me so many years that I have learned to regard her as a sister. I hope you will be friends with her. She is an excellent mentor to thoughtless youth.”
Neva bowed, but the smile that played for an instant on her saucy lips was not encouraging to the would-be “mentor.”
“I shall try not to trouble her,” she said, smiling, “although I shall always be glad to receive advice from my father’s wife. I trust that you and I will be friends, Lady Wynde, for poor papa’s sake.”
Lady Wynde sat down beside her step-daughter. Artress retreated to a recessed window, and took up her usual embroidery. Neva exerted herself to converse with her step-mother, and was soon conscious of a feeling of disappointment in her. She felt that Lady Wynde was insincere, a hypocrite, and a double-dealer, and she experienced a sense of uneasiness in her presence. Could this be the wife her father had adored? she asked herself. And then she accused herself of injustice and harsh judgment, believing that her father could not have been so mistaken in the character of his wife, and in atonement for her unfavorable opinion she was very gentle, and full of deference. Lady Wynde congratulated herself upon having won her step-daughter’s good opinion after all.