No word or look included me in the invitation which Miss Irma tendered to my grandmother. Nevertheless I followed, not knowing what else to do. I felt huge, awkward, clumsy of build and knotty of elbow and knee. I was conscious that my knuckles were red. I felt in the way and unhappy. In short, I hulked. Indeed, but that I was able to watch two eyes of darkest grey beneath a wisp of untamed curls on a small and shapely head, and the look of the thing, I would far rather have stopped out on the doorstep with Crazy.
And perhaps that would have been the best place for me, all things considered.
After we had passed two or three rooms in review, all of which were, as it appeared to me, garnished with the ordinary sheets and coverlets of a bedroom, my grandmother abruptly turned upon Miss Irma.
“Let me see your hands!” she said, in her ordinary brusque manner. I was in terror lest we should be shown to the door. But the freemasonry of work, the knowledge of things feminine, the fine little nod of appreciation at a detail which is perfectly lost on a man, the flush of answering approbation had done their perfect work between the old woman and the girl.
Such things were not within my ken, and my grandmother promptly banished me. She set down the little baronet at the same time with a “Run and play, my doo!” She issued directions for me to charge myself with the responsibility. I would much rather have stayed to hear what grandmother and Miss Irma had to say one to the other, because I was more interested in that. But the choice was not given to me. Go I must.
And with her first personal word of acknowledgment that I was a human being, Miss Irma, calling me by name, indicated the “drawing-room” as the place where we might await the end of this first congress of the Holy Alliance.
I was some little alarmed at the place, the name of which so far I had only seen in books, but little Sir Louis whispered in my ear as he took my hand, “We can play there. That’s only what sister Irma calls it!”
When my grandmother and Miss Irma appeared after an absence of half-an-hour they found the two of us deep in a game of bat-ball. I made an attempt to hide the ball, fearing lest Miss Irma might think I usually carried such things about with me (I had confiscated it in class that day). But I need not have troubled, she paid no attention whatever to me, continuing to hold my grandmother’s hand and look into the wise, stormy, tender, emphatic, much-enduring old face. And I wondered at my relative, and saw in this marvel one more proof of her own infallibility.
“You must not stay any longer in this great house alone,” she was saying, “I will send you—somebody.”
Then she looked again at Miss Irma’s hands, and though I did not see why, nor understand at the time, she added, “No—no—it will never do—never do!” I wish I could say that on this first occasion of our meeting, Miss Irma devoted a little of her attention to me. But the truth is, she had eyes for nobody but Mistress Mary Lyon of Heathknowes. True, a glance occasionally came my way, which caused me instinctively to straighten myself up and square my shoulders, as I did in the playground when acting as drill sergeant to the juniors. But the very same glance with quite as much personality in it, passed on to Crazy, who, to the exuberant delight of little Louis, had by this time intruded himself. It was impossible for the most self-conceited to bring away much comfort or encouragement from favours so slight as these.