The shining boots crashed the gravel, and the white dress gleamed through the darkness, some time after the young men were seated in Mr Elphinstone’s handsome drawing-room. The master of the mansion sat alone when they entered, gazing into a small, bright coal fire, which, though it was not much past midsummer, burned in the grate. For Mr Elphinstone was an invalid, with little hope of being other than an invalid all his life, though he was by no means an old man yet.
If he had been expecting visitors, he had forgotten it, for they had come quite close to him before he looked up, and he quite started at the sound of Mr Millar’s voice. He rose and received them courteously and kindly, however. Mr Elphinstone in his own drawing-room was a different person, or rather, he showed a different manner from Mr Elphinstone in his counting-room in intercourse with his clerks; and Harry, who had had none but business intercourse with him, was struck with the difference. It required an effort for him to realise that the bland, gentle voice was the same that he had so often heard in brief and prompt command.
Business was to be ignored to-night, however. Their talk was of quite other matters. There was an allusion to the new partnership, and to Mr Millar’s half-brother, the new partner, who at the moment, as they all knew, was passing along the garden walk with a little white hand on his coat-sleeve. This was not alluded to, however, though each thought his own thoughts about it, in the midst of their talk. That those of Mr Elphinstone were rather agreeable to himself, the lads could plainly see. He had no son, and that his partner and nephew should fall into a son’s place was an idea that pleased him well. Indeed, it had cost him some self-denial to-night not to intimate as much to him after the pretty Lilias had withdrawn, and the smile that Harry was stealthily watching on his face, was called up by the remembrance of the admiration which his daughter had evidently called forth. Harry watched the smile, and in his heart called the new partner “lucky,” and “cute,” and looked at Charlie’s discontented face with a comic astonishment that would have excited some grave astonishment to their host, if by any chance he had looked up to see. Though why Charlie should look discontented about it, Harry could not well see.
They talked about indifferent matters with a little effort till the white dress gleamed in the firelight, and a soft voice said—
“What, still in the dark, papa!”
The lights came in, and Harry was introduced to Miss Elphinstone. He had shared Rosie’s interest in the lady of the pony-carriage, long ago, and had sometimes seen and spoken with her in the garden in those days, but he had not seen her since her return from Scotland, where her last three years had been spent. A very sweet-looking and graceful little lady she was, though a little silent and shy at first, perhaps in sympathy, Harry thought, with the tall, bearded gentleman who had come in with her.
It was evidently Harry’s interest to be on good terms with the new partner, and common politeness might have suggested the propriety of some appearance of interest in him and his conversation. But he turned his back upon the group by the fire, and devoted himself to the entertainment of their young hostess who was by this time busy with her tea-cups in another part of the room. There was some talk about the weather and the voyage and sea-sickness, and in the first little pause that came, the young lady looked up and said,—
“You don’t live in the house opposite now, I think.”
It was the first voluntary remark she had made, and thankful for a new opening, Harry said,—
“No; my sisters were never quite contented there. We left it as soon as possible; and we are quite at the other end of the town now.”