The young man bent and softly touched her cheek with his lips.
She put out her hand and let it linger affectionately in his as he dropped into the chair beside her.
"I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to see you, Bob," she went on, in a voice soft and exquisitely modulated. "We had no idea you were on the Cape. But for that jeweler's stupidity we should have thought you had gone west long ago. Considering what good friends you and Roger are, you are the worst of correspondents; and you never write to me."
"I know it," owned Robert Morton with disarming honesty. "It's beastly of me."
"No, dear. On the contrary it is very like a man," contradicted Madam Lee with a pretty little laugh. "However, I am not going to scold you about it now. I have seen too many men in my day. First let me pour your tea. Then you shall tell me all that you have been doing. I hear you are visiting a new aunt whom you have just unearthed."
"Yes."
"How do you like her?"
Bob chuckled at the characteristic directness of the question.
"Very much indeed."
"That's nice. Since relatives are not of our choosing, it is pleasant to find they are not bores."