The colonel didn’t mind. He raised the proffered hand to his lips; such homage seemed quite the most natural act in the world with Mrs. Winter. And he unobtrusively edged his own lean and wiry person into the vacant seat opposite her.
“How far are you going?” said she, after a few moves of the cards.
“My ticket says Los Angeles; but it had to say something, so I chose Los Angeles for luck; I’m an irresponsible tramp now, you know; and I may drop off almost anywhere. You are for southern California, aren’t you?”
“Eventually; but we shall stop at San Francisco for two or three weeks.”
“Do you mind if I stop off with you? I want to get acquainted with my ward,” said the colonel.
“That’s a good idea, Bertie.”
“He seems rather out of sorts; you aren’t worried about—well, tuberculosis or that sort of thing?”
“I am worried about just that sort of thing; although the doctor says nothing organic at all is the matter with him; but he is too melancholy for a boy; he needs rousing; losing his father and mother in one year, you know, and he was devoted to them. I can’t quite make him out, Bertie; he hasn’t the Winter temperament. I suppose he has a legal right to his mother’s nature; but it is very annoying. It makes him so much harder to understand—not that she wasn’t a good woman who made Tom happy; but she wasn’t a Winter. However, Janet has brightened him up considerably—you’ve seen Janet—Miss Smith? What do you think of her?”
Winter said honestly that she was very nice-looking and that she looked right capable; he fell into the idiom of his youth sometimes when with a Southerner.
“She is,” said Aunt Rebecca.