"No; only his mother. Hurry up!"
They left Sarah half weeping over his magnificent kindness. Denis little knew how from that moment he was a young god—a prince in a fairy tale—a hero—to the romantic Sarah.
Up in the drawing-room a stiff little party sat nursing empty cups. In vain Mrs. Barclay tried to unstiffen it. Her eyes met Nell's, and a gleam of amusement shone in them before she discreetly veiled them beneath decorous lids.
Miss Kezia was cross. She had been taken unawares. With a queer kind of heavy hospitality, she liked to know when a visitor was coming, that she might have cakes and scones of all sorts freshly baked. To-day she had not known, and there was nothing but bread and butter and half a dozen small cakes. So she sat, stiffly disapproving, and refused to unbend.
Sheila Pat marched in, calm and cool, greeted Mrs. Barclay with her most pronounced accent, took her seat upon a chair, pulled down her skirt, and surveyed the room.
"I have a little boy not much older than you," Mrs. Barclay began pleasantly.
"Sure I'm knowin' that already."
"He wants to know you very badly."
Dead silence.
"I hope you will be friends—you and he."