“How is father?” I said.
“Oh, he is rather bad; but there are plenty of doctors, and we hope to pull him through.”
“And my step-mother?”
“Rachel, she is a brick! She is about the best and dearest woman in all the world. I never knew her like. She has been up with him all the week, and never thinks of herself at all.”
“But, oh, here comes Alex—dear Alex!”
Alex came up to me. In this moment of universal anxiety he was delighted to see me again; he kissed me several times.
“Why, you have grown,” he said, “and you look so—”
“She looks awfully nice,” said Von Marlo.
He had come in dragging Mademoiselle with him.
“Mademoiselle Wrex is my mother’s cousin,” he said. “I am delighted to see her.”