“It is a mean trick to butt in, I’m afraid,” Mr. Lancaster said. “Miss Adair, will you tolerate a larger boy here?”
He stood smiling, tall and handsome, as different from ordinary men as Tom had described him; as far beyond them, Cis thought, seeing him anew after so long a time.
“Mr. Lancaster!” she cried, as if she had not been expecting him all the afternoon; wondering in the back of her brain why he did not come; if it had not been he, after all, whom Tom had seen in the station. “Where did you come from? And how glad I am that you did come!”
“Then you don’t resent what your small friend here calls my butting in?” Mr. Lancaster suggested, looking no less happy than the smallest boy there.
“I went to see you, but your friend Mrs.?—Nan?—told me that you were away, and how to find you. She seemed to think I might come to the glen. You look well? Yes, I think you look well, but I’m not sure of it; you are not just as you were in Beaconhite, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” said Cis. “But I’m perfectly well. What of Miss Braithwaite?”
“She is at home again. She was going to write you, but when I suggested seeing you instead, she jumped at the idea. She said it was because she detests letter writing, but I think she wanted closer communication with you, to get my report of you. I came on with Paul, Paul Randolph. He is going to marry Miss Lucas—but she said that she had told you,” Mr. Lancaster checked himself.
“She did. I hoped—I mean I thought perhaps—Well, he is lucky, that’s certain. I’d be glad to have him marry Jeanette if I were his friend,” Cis stammered, confused.
Anselm Lancaster elevated his eyebrows with a quizzical look. He quite well knew what Cis would have said if she had gone on with the beginning of her sentence. But all that he said was:
“I suspect it is one of your secret employments to provide for your friends’ happiness! And aren’t you glad that these two are engaged, being a friend of Miss Lucas? Indeed you well may be; Paul Randolph is a fine fellow!”