In an instant Doris was on her feet and confronting him with the bright color staining her cheeks and a kindling light in her blue eyes as she went forward to meet him. She knew who it was, and, with a bright smile which made his heart beat rapidly, she offered him her hand and said, “I am not your aunt Dizzy, but if you are Grantley Montague I am your cousin, Doris Morton,—Gerald Morton’s daughter,—and I am very glad to see you.”
For the first time in his life Grantley’s speech forsook him. Here was his Lost Star, declaring herself to be his cousin! What did it mean? Dropping his satchel and taking off his soft hat, with which he fanned himself furiously, he exclaimed, “Great Scott! My cousin Doris! Gerold Morton’s daughter! I don’t understand you. I never knew he had a daughter, or much about him any way. Where have you kept yourself, that I have never seen or heard of you, and why haven’t my aunts told me of you?”
He had her hand in his, as he led her back to the summer-house, while she said to him. “A part of the time I have been at Wellesley. I was there when you were at Harvard, and used to hear a great deal of you, although I never dreamed you were my cousin till I came here.”
This took his breath away, and, sitting down beside her, he plied her with questions until he knew all that she knew of her past and why they had been kept apart so long.
“By Jove, I don’t like it,” he said. “Why, if I had known you were at Wellesley I should have spent half my time on the road between there and Harvard——”
“And the other half between Harvard and Madame De Moisiere’s?” Doris said, archly, as she moved a little from him, for he had a hand on her shoulder now.
“What do you mean?” he asked, quickly, while something of the light faded from his eyes, and the eagerness from his voice.
“I heard a great deal about you from different sources, and about Miss Haynes, too; and I once saw you with her in the train whistling an accompaniment to her banjo,” Doris replied.
“The dickens you did!” Grant said, dropping Doris’s hand, which he had held so closely.
It is a strange thing to say of an engaged young man that the mention of his betrothed was like a breath of cold wind chilling him suddenly, but it was so in Grant’s case. With the Lost Star sitting by him, he had for a moment forgotten Dorothea, whose farewell kiss was only a few hours old.