The short conventional sentences were the only references made to Miles’ own affairs, and then, as if in a hurry to get to the subject most on her mind, Mrs Alliot began to speak of her daughter.
“You will be surprised to find Cynthia looking so well. She has put on flesh during the last few months, and the sea-air has given her a colour. Last winter she was painfully thin. It has been a long uphill struggle, but now at last we begin to see definite improvement. The doctors are confident that it will be a complete cure if we are very careful during the next two or three years. The great thing is to live in pure bracing air, and to keep her happy and cheerful. Anything that caused agitation or worry of any kind, would have a deleterious effect. She has a very sensitive nature, and things go deeply with her,—more deeply than with most girls. Her father and I hide all worries from her, even our anxiety about herself. We, and all the friends who love her, must unite in doing everything in our power to spare her during these all-important years. I know you will understand the position.”
“Yes,” said Miles quietly, “I perfectly understand.”
He had grown very white beneath his tan, and Mrs Alliot, glancing swiftly at him, felt a pang of compunction. Poor young fellow, it was hard on him, if he really cared! Yet she had done no more than her duty in warning him that he could not be allowed to disturb Cynthia’s peace of mind. So far, the girl was fancy free, but her interest in the return of her boy-friend was so strong that a word, a look, a hint of his own feeling might be sufficient to fan it into a stronger flame.
“But now that I have spoken he knows how things are, and he is a good fellow! He will think of her before himself,” said Cynthia’s mother to herself with a sigh of relief.
For the rest of the way to the house Mrs Alliot talked on impersonal subjects, and Miles answered with colourless politeness; then, at last, across a wide green lawn, a sun shelter came into view, in which Betty could be discerned, and someone else in a white dress lying on a couch banked up with blue cushions.
“There are the girls! Don’t wait for me! Go across the lawn,” said Mrs Alliot kindly.
When one has dealt the one great blow, it is easy enough to make trifling concessions, reflected Miles bitterly, as he strode forward; but the next moment all bitterness died away as he grasped a thin white hand, and looked down into a face which was at once strange, and exquisitely familiar. Cynthia, but Cynthia as a woman, no longer a schoolgirl; Cynthia with her golden mane wound smoothly round her head, with blue shadows under the sweet eyes, and hollows where the dimples used to dip in the rounded cheeks. At the first glance the air of delicacy was painfully pronounced, but as she smiled and flushed, the old merry Cynthia looked at him once more.
“Miles! Is it really you? I can hardly believe it! Such a great, big man! Oh, but I’m glad! I’m glad to see you again! Sit down, sit down. Let me see you properly. I mayn’t get up from this horrid couch. Yes, it’s you! I’d know your eyes anywhere, and the moustache is nice—a very fine moustache, Miles! I’m glad the beard is off. I like your square chin. It is lovely to have you all here, and to know you have not to run away in a few hours. I’m looking forward immensely to the next week. Old Miles! It is good to see you!”
She laughed and coughed, and lent back against the cushions, pushing them into place with an impatient hand; while Miles stared at her in an intent silence which printed every detail so deeply in his memory that no passage of time could wear them away. The loose ends of hair which escaped from the coils and curled on her white neck, the long transparent hands against the blue cushions, the slight figure in the white dress—how often that vision arose before him in the years to come!