Mrs. Sartin appeared to consult an imaginary visiting list.
“No, I can’t say as I do. Do you, Jessie?” 109
Jessie shook her head. She had ceased to look at their visitor; instead, she looked at his boots, and her cheeks grew red.
“I thought I would like to see if you were still here.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure.” It was not meant ironically, it was solely addressed to the blue suit and brown boots, but it nearly reduced the wearer of these awe-inspiring clothes to tears.
For the moment, in the clutch of the past, with associations laying gripping hands on him and with his curious faculty of responding to the outward call, Aston House and the Astons became suddenly a faint blurred impression to Christopher, less real and tangible than these worn, sordid surroundings. Had anyone just then demanded his name he would undoubtedly have responded “Hibbault.” He felt confused and wretched, alive to the fact that little Jim Hibbault had neither people nor home nor relations in the world, if these once kindly women had no welcome for him.
“I heard you call Jim,” he hazarded at last, in an extremity of disconcerted shyness.
Mrs. Sartin eyed the four-year-old nestling in her apron and pulled him from cover.
“Yes, that be Jim. We called ’im Jim arter you. He was born arter you an’ your ma went away.”
He longed to ask after Marley of unhappy memory, but the possibilities were too apparent for him to venture, so silence again fell over them.