"Is it not a jolly scene?" she added—"the fountain against the green, and the flowers and the sunshine everywhere, and all those light summer gowns outdoors in January, and—" She checked herself and laid her hand on his arm; "Garry, do you see that girl in the wheel-chair!—the one just turning into the gardens!"
He had already seen her. Suddenly his heart stood still in dread of what his aunt was about to say. He knew already somehow that she was going to say it, yet when she spoke the tiny shock came just the same.
"That," said his aunt, "is Shiela Cardross. Is she not too lovely for words?"
"Yes," he said, "she is very beautiful."
For a while they stood together there at the window, then he said good-bye in a rather subdued manner which made his aunt laugh that jolly, clear laugh which never appealed to him in vain.
"You're not mortally stricken already at your first view of her, are you?" she asked.
"Not mortally," he said.
"Then fall a victim and recover quickly. And don't let me sit here too long without seeing you; will you?"
She went to the door with him, one arm linked in his, brown eyes bright with her pride and confidence in him—in this tall, wholesome, clean-built boy, already on the verge of distinction in his rather unusual profession. And she saw in him all the strength and engaging good looks of his dead father, and all the clear and lovable sincerity of his mother—her only sister—now also dead.
"You will come to see me sometimes—won't you, Garry?" she repeated wistfully.