Tim Durward, though dowered to the full with his mother's beauty, had yet been effectually preserved from the misfortune of being an effeminate repetition of her. In him, Elisabeth's glowing auburn colouring had sobered to a steady brown—evidenced in the crisp, curly hair and sun-tanned skin; and the misty hyacinth-blue of her eyes had hardened in the eyes of her son into the clear, bright azure of the sea, whist the beautiful contours of her face, repeated in his, had strengthened into a fine young virility.
“I can't cure mother of introducing me as if I were the Lord Mayor,” he murmured plaintively to Sara as they sat down to tea. “I suppose it's the penalty of being an only son.”
“Nothing of the sort,” asserted Elisabeth composedly. “Naturally I'm pleased with you—you're so absurdly like me. I always look upon you in the light of a perpetual compliment, because you've elected to grow up like me instead of like Geoffrey”—nodding towards her husband. “After all, you had us both to choose from.”
Tim shouted with delight.
“Listen to her, Miss Tennant! And for years I've been mistaking mere vulgar female vanity for maternal solicitude.”
“Anyway, you're a very poor compliment,” threw in Major Durward, with an expressive glance at his wife's beautiful face. It was obvious that he worshipped her, and she smiled across at him, blushing adorably, just like a girl of sixteen.
Tim turned to Sara with a grimace.
“It's a great trial, Miss Tennant, to be blessed with two parents—”
“It's quite usual,” interpolated Geoffrey mildly.
“Two parents,” continued Tim, firmly ignoring him, “who are hopelessly, besottedly in love with each other. Instead of being—as I ought to be—the apple of their eye—of both their eyes—I'm merely the shadowy third.”