“Yes; he must be very rich, for they have every appearance of it, and Miss Gladstone’s turn-out, which was sent on before them, is a marvel of luxury and elegance. But—do you know them?” Mr. Pendleton asked, regarding her curiously.
Mrs. Richards’ thoughts worked very rapidly.
If this was really Jacob Rosevelt, and she could not doubt the evidence of her own eyes, he must by some stroke of luck have recovered a portion, if not the whole, of his fortune since leaving her house; and in this case he became at once an entirely different person from the feeble, poverty-stricken individual who had come to her a little more than a year ago to sue for food and shelter.
He had been a person of no account then—one to be ignored and neglected, for there was nothing to be gained by treating him otherwise.
But “Jacob Rosevelt, the millionaire,” if such he had become again, must be propitiated, flattered, and cajoled.
Therefore she had a new role to play, and she would begin at once by claiming him as a relative before these friends of hers.
“It would be very strange if I did not know him, for he is my father’s brother,” she said, calling to her lips her blandest smiles; “but I am sure I had no idea that he was here in Newport. Come, Josephine, we must go and speak to him;” and she drew the astonished girl away before they could question them any further, and she wished to collect her own scattered senses a little before encountering those two whom she had so deeply injured.
“What can it mean, mamma?” Josephine repeated, with a blank look, for she had no longer any doubt about the identity of the strangers.
“I don’t know, but I am going to find out,” she answered resolutely.
“Then you are convinced that it is Stella?”