“Oh, Hugh, it is so good to see you again.”
He kissed her. What else could he do? And then, holding her hand and drawing it through his arm, he led her into the house. He rang the bell for tea, for it was tea-time when she came.
“You are going to have a good tea first, then you are going to tell me all your troubles, and we are going to put them all straight and right. And then—then, Marjorie, you are going to smile as you used to.”
A faint smile came to her lips, her eyes were on his face. “Oh, Hugh, if—if you knew how—how good it is to see you again and hear you speak to me.”
He put his hand on her shoulders.
“It is always good to me to see you,” he said softly. “You’re one of the best things in my world, Marjorie, little maid.”
She bent her head, so that her soft cheek touched his hand, and what man could draw his hand away from that caress? Not Hugh Alston.
And now came Phipps with the tea, which he arranged on the small table and retired.
“It’s all right between them two,” he announced in the kitchen a little later. “She’ll be missus here after all, I’ll lay ten to one.”
“Law bless and save us!” said cook. “I thought it was off, and she was going to marry young Mr. Arundel.”