Miss McPherson had told her that he still complained of numbness in his legs, so she was prepared for the sight of the long, gaunt figure stretched out so inertly on a bed near the window. His head was turned her way, and as he held out a long arm, a pair of searching, sunken eyes met hers.
“Judy! Good girl, good girl!” he cried. “I meant to turn my face to the wall if you didn’t come. Miss McPherson, place her chair a little nearer. That’s it. Judy, Judy!”
“You’re exactly the same ‘Old Stephen’ I remember,” said Judy, unexpectedly moved at this meeting, “only gray instead of iron-gray.” It was silly to feel tearful. “Do—do I look a bit as you thought I’d look?”
He answered in a lower voice, still holding her hand in a grip of surprising strength:
“You’re like your grandmother, thank God! I prayed that you might be. It’s the eyes, I think—yes, it’s the eyes and expression. I can build her up, around your eyes. You always promised to be a little like her. Ah, my dear, my dear, it was good of you to come!”
“Good of me! You little know what you saved me from!”
“Saved you from?”
“Yes. You—I was simply desperate. I’d begun to hate myself and every one else, except Madame Claire and Noel.”
“Madame Claire,” he repeated. “Yes, I like that. And what then?”
“I was longing to get away. You see I haven’t been out of England since I was sixteen. Except to Scotland, and I don’t count that. And I felt—stale. You’ve saved my life, I think, and now you say I’m going to save yours.… We’ll have a wonderful time, won’t we, Miss McPherson?”