‘How do you do?’ he said politely.
Miss Pepperdine drew a quick breath. She took the outstretched hand and bent down and kissed the boy’s cheek; in the lamplight she had seen her dead sister’s eyes look out of the young face, and for the moment she could not trust herself to speak. Judith trembled all over; as the boy turned to her she put both arms round him and drew him into the parlour, and there embraced him warmly. He looked at her somewhat wonderingly and critically, and then responded to her embrace.
‘You are my Aunt Judith,’ he said. ‘Uncle Pepperdine told me about you. You are the handsome one.’
Judith kissed him again. She had fallen in love with him on the spot.
‘Yes, I am your Aunt Judith, my dear,’ she said. ‘And I am very, very glad to see you—we are all glad.’
She still held him in her arms, looking at him long and hungrily. Miss Pepperdine came in, businesslike and bustling; she had lingered in the hall, ostensibly to give an order to the servant, but in reality to get rid of a tear or two.
‘Now, then, let me have a look at him,’ she said, and drew the boy out of Judith’s hands and turned him to the light. ‘Your Aunt Judith,’ she continued as she scanned him critically, ‘is the handsome one, as I heard you say just now—I’m the ugly one. Do you think you’ll like me?’
Lucian stared back at her with a glance as keen and searching as her own. He looked her through and through.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I like you. I think——’ He paused and smiled a little.
‘You think—what?’