The door opened, and a vision came in. The word is advisable, seeing that for the moment Moira did not recognise, in this radiant appearance, the short-skirted child of the tumbled curls she had known a few years before. For this was a being perfectly dressed, with hair perfectly arranged, and with a wonderfully correct smile of welcome parting her lips and brightening her blue eyes. There was no haste or impetuosity or eagerness; only one swift critical glance at the thin, somewhat shabbily dressed figure; then an embrace, with a little murmur in the girl's ear that was half pitying and half patronising; a murmur that sent the hot blood to Moira's cheeks, and chilled her at the same time.
"My sweet Moira—to meet you like this!" exclaimed the exquisite one. "Over and over again I've urged Aunt Baffall to do something—to advertise—or inquire of somebody—and yet nothing's been done. How have you lived, my dear—and what are you doing with yourself? Do sit down and tell me all about it?"
Moira sat down, with her eyes straying in the direction of the perplexed old woman, whose motherly instincts, cheated so long, had induced her late in life to bring this awkward swan under her very ordinary goose's wing. When presently Mr. Baffall strayed in, he did but accentuate the position; for he was more awkward than ever, and seemed to have a vague and horrible feeling that Moira had come there with the object of being adopted also. He sat there, while Mrs. Baffall furtively reached for his hand, and regarded the two girls in silence.
"Now I want to have a long talk with Moira; so you'll please run away," said Alice at last, after a long and somewhat awkward pause. "You know what time to order the carriage, dear Uncle Baffall; and I do hope that Aunt Baffall will lie down for half an hour before we start; she is so liable to fall asleep," she added to Moira, as she took an arm of each of the old people and hurried them out of the room.
"But I wanted to talk to her myself," protested Mrs. Baffall feebly. But the door was closed and she was gone.
Afterwards, in recalling the conversation that had taken place, Moira found it difficult to remember anything in particular. She had a vague notion that Alice's time was largely taken up with the fitting on of frocks and with conversations with young gentlemen upon nothing in particular; but she brought away with her a distinct notion that the blue eyes were more beautiful than ever, although somewhat colder, and that the droop of the mouth would have made almost anyone who did not understand, sorry for the girl in an indefinite way. Only one point did honest Moira think of resentfully afterwards; and that was Alice's dismissal of the Baffalls from the very scheme of things, as being necessary only for what they gave her.
"The dear old things are so stuffy," she had said. "Positively, sometimes, my dear, I find myself blushing for them, and going hot and cold when I think of the mistakes they have made. But there—I think most of my real friends understand!"
Remembering that resplendent vision that drove in a carriage through this London in a corner of which Moira hid, she determined to go no more in search of Alice. Instead, she turned with an eagerly-beating heart in the direction in which Jimmy might be found—Jimmy, who had not even been mentioned by Alice or by the Baffalls. Only now, as she went in search of him, did she begin to think it strange that nothing had been said concerning Mr. Baffall's other protégé.
The address was that of a huge general warehouse in a narrow street turning out of Cheapside. Moira found it with some difficulty; read the name over the big windows with a feeling of pride that Jimmy should belong to such an establishment. After a little hesitation she went inside, through big swing doors, into a great warehouse stacked to the very ceiling with parcels wrapped in paper, and with cardboard boxes and bales; and with innumerable young men and elderly men and boys at work among the parcels and the bales, and here and there a figure perched at a high desk, jotting down something called to him by one of the busy figures. But no sign of Jimmy.
A young gentleman without a coat lounged forward to the counter at which she stood; glanced at her quickly for a moment, and went on writing in a book. Without looking up he asked what she wanted.