"Now, you must come to the Club and lunch with me, and meet my friends. Do be decent to them!"
Perhaps you can see Sherbrand bowing rather stiffly to Margot and accepting with the briefest hesitation the smallest of offered hands.
"I thought it must be the same!—I was certain there couldn't be two Flying Sherbrands. Pat!—Mr. Sherbrand can't deny the relationship, though he disapproves of Franky and me most fearfully. You'll have to teach him," went on the coaxing little voice, "that we're lots and lots nicer than he thinks us! For we've got to be friends," said Kittums, "if you and my dear Pat are going to be married! No time like the present! Can't we begin now?"
What a vivid little face it was, though there were tired marks like faint bruises under the great dark eyes, and the rose-flush in the cheeks was less bright than it had seemed in June. He released the tiny jewelled fingers, and found himself presented to the husband.
"Frightfully glad to meet you—more reasons than one!"
Franky, slim, sleek-headed, and dapper in unblemished Regulation tea-leaf, held out his hand, saying as he looked the other squarely in the eyes:
"If I had known your Home address, I should like to have dropped a line to you, when I—when I saw the newspaper yesterday."
"My mother lives at Bournemouth. My father had been an invalid for years. I go down to-day by the afternoon train."
"Ah! Please remember me to my—Aunt Jeannette."
From what dusty shelf of memories had Franky reached down the name of his uncle's unknown wife? But it sounded pleasantly to Mrs. Sherbrand's son. The cloud upon his forehead cleared away, and his cold sea-blue eyes began to thaw into kindness: