"Ah, Mr. Morpeth," said Mrs. Rouat, mopping her face with her damp handkerchief. "It is true whatt you say! How beautifulee you put it. Time does bring changes! And to you, too, time has brought changes."
"And you, have you left Calcutta and come to live in Vepery?" Mr. Morpeth asked, preferring to divert the conversation from matters personal to himself.
"Live in Vepery! No thank you, not when I have the most beautiful up-stair house in all Chandrychoke, besides a good bit of house property round about! No, I'm onlee on a visit to my poor widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Baltus."
"Ah, yes, and you are Mrs. Baltus' daughter?" said Mr. Morpeth, looking with a kindly smile on Leila.
"She is, and as nice a girl as ever stepped," chimed in Mrs. Rouat with a gratified air, "though I allow she's a bit stand-offish in manner for her station in life," she added apologetically, noting her niece's defiant, sulky air. "But things is going to look up now thatt I've come. I'm going to give them a good lift up before I've done. Some fine parties and some nice drives to the fashionable beach will set them up wonderful." Mrs. Rouat rolled her eyes upon her niece, who still sat with a sullen air; Mr. Morpeth made no comment on the programme.
"And so you live all alone in this veree fine house?" continued Mrs. Rouat, now fixing her eyes interrogatively on Mr. Morpeth's face. "Ah, wouldn't this grand bungalow have pleased Rosina! She was thatt fond of style! Ah, well, she's gone, but it was a thousand peeties you didn't keep hold on thatt child—a fine boy he was. But Rosina had set her heart on sending him across the black water to make an Englishman of him, and so you let Flo take him. Oh, it was a peety! Just think what a comfort he might have been to you now."
Mrs. Rouat's benevolent face looked with concern on the bent frame of the acquaintance of her youth. "What's become of him? I hope he is still in the land of the livin'?" she asked, seeing Mr. Morpeth's face grow grey and drawn.
He seemed to hesitate whether he should break the silence. At length, with evident effort, he replied:
"No, my son is not dead. He still lives."
Then, determining to change the subject, he turned to Leila and fixed his searching eyes on her.