It had been half a lifetime ago. She was only a child. They were staying in London, and he had come to see them on his way from some review. He remembered how Audrey had stood and looked at him. She had the same clear gray eyes then.
'How grand you look, Mike!' she exclaimed in an awestruck tone, for as a child she had always called him 'Mike.' 'I wish you would always wear that beautiful scarlet coat; and I think, if you did not mind, I should like you to kiss me just for once.'
Michael remembered how he had felt as she made that innocent request, and how Dr. Ross had laughed; and then, when he kissed her cheek, she thanked him quite gravely, and slipped back to her father.
'Why don't you ask for a kiss, too, Gage?' Dr. Ross observed in a joking way.
But Geraldine had looked quite shocked at the idea.
'No, thank you, father; I never kiss soldiers,' she replied discreetly—at which reply there had been a fresh laugh.
'He may be a soldier, but Mike's Mike, and I wanted to kiss him,' returned Audrey stoutly. 'Why do you laugh, daddy?—little girls may kiss anybody.'
Had he cared for her ever since then, he wondered; and then he pulled himself up with a sort of start.
'Michael, why do you not answer me?'
'Because I was thinking,' he returned quietly. 'Audrey, do you know you are just as much a child as you were a dozen years ago? Does it ever occur to you, my dear, that Blake might not always endorse your opinion? Stop,' as she was about to speak; 'we all know what a kind-hearted person our Lady Bountiful is, and how she never thinks of herself at all. But I have a sort of fellow-feeling with Blake, and I quite understand his view of the case—that two is company and three are none.'