“What did that woman want, Mrs. Corliss?”
She started abruptly from her reverie, replying, hesitatingly.
“She wanted to see Miss Pluma, sir.”
“Was Pluma so busily engaged she could not spare that poor creature a moment or so?” he inquired, irritably. “Where is she?”
“In the parlor, sir.”
With slow, feeble steps, more from weakness than age, Basil Hurlhurst walked slowly down the corridor to the parlor.
It was seldom he left his own apartments of late, yet Pluma never raised her superb eyes from the book of engravings which lay in her lap as he entered the room.
A weary smile broke under his silver-white mustache.
“You do not seem in a hurry to bid me welcome, Pluma,” he said, grimly, throwing himself down into an easy-chair opposite her. “I congratulate myself upon having such an affectionate daughter.”