A glow of beatitude came over James Rowland’s face. He almost hurt her arm with the pressure he gave it. “You think so? You really think so, Evelyn—before the Queen?” The warmth ran to his very heart, and came back in a sort of dew of happiness to his eyes. His little girl before the Queen! perhaps to be noted by that mother sovereign herself with a kindly eye. His child! and he there to look on, paying the homage it would be more than his duty to pay. He stood for a moment clasping Evelyn’s arm, too glad to speak. And then—for the pain is more persistent than the pleasure—he added in a low confidential tone. “But the boy—is just a lout, poor lad?” It sounded like an assertion, but it was a question, and of the most anxious kind.
“He is no lout, you unjust, abominable parent. I see at once the eyes you told me of—his mother’s eyes.”
“One would think, to hear you, that you had seen his mother!”
“I have through your eyes, James. I will never forget that first day. And I thought of her as we came across the Clyde.”
“It was more than I did, Evelyn—with you there.”
“She must have been there with you often, and thought you were talking nonsense; and now you have got all you ever dreamed of——”
“And more!” he said; “and more!” again pressing her arm.
“And now we have got to make it up,” said Evelyn, “to the two whom she has left to you—and to me, through you, James.”
“She was an innocent, simple creature, Evelyn!”
“She was your wife, James. Don’t go into the house which you have dreamed of for so long without thinking of her who never lived to be its mistress.”