He looked from one to the other, until Aileen complained that the look was becoming a stare. Perhaps it was upon her that it dwelt longest. Garth and his father had filled out and broadened beyond belief: they were deeply tanned and clear-eyed, and in each was a curious look of resoluteness that the doctor had never seen before. But the change in Aileen was deeper. The fragile, willowy girl of Toorak had gone: in her place was a woman with lines about her eyes, yet a new beauty in her face. A gracious woman, with perfect health on her brown cheek, and in her eyes perfect happiness. He looked at her hands: in the old days they had been like the inner petals of a rose, as soft and smooth, and delicately pink. Now they were still smooth and well-kept, but hard, and bronzed. She held them out to him with a quaint little gesture.
"You needn't look at my hands—I told you I was a working-woman!"
He took the slim hands in his, and bent over them.
"I find them extremely good hands," he said "And all of you make a tonic for tired eyes. I haven't seen three such visions of health for years, and the curious part of it is that though you're lone exiles you don't look unhappy!"
"I'm afraid we've given up the 'exile' stand-point," Tom said, laughing. "It was pathetic, of course; but it grew so ludicrously incorrect that we had to abandon it for the sake of our own self-respect. Come in, old man, and get your coat off."
"You must bring him to the kitchen when he's ready," Aileen declared. "If I don't cook the dinner there won't be any, and you needn't think I'm going to miss any of his visit!"
"We'll come and help cook," the doctor said.
He watched them, later—Aileen, with her sleeves rolled above her elbows, compounding pastry, while Tom prepared vegetables, and Garth scrubbed potatoes.
"Do you always manage this way?"
"Mercy, no!" said Tom. "She won't let us. She's proud, and haughty, and insists on doing everything herself, and she hunts us out into the paddocks to toil in the heat—doesn't she, Garth?"