When Macpherson arrived at the villa at the appointed hour he found Tom waiting at the gate.
“Mother wants you to come in and see her,” said the boy, shaking hands, and Macpherson followed him into the house to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Echalaz—a pretty, faded, delicate-looking woman—lay on the sofa beside the open window. She turned her head languidly towards him, and held out a slim white hand.
“Ah, Mr. Macpherson, it is so good of you to devote yourself to my boy,” she said, conventionally. “I am sure he is very grateful; are you not, Tom?”
Tom murmured something about “awfully jolly,” and suggested that they should start at once.
Mrs. Echalaz, however, first asked many questions, as to the distance, the river, and the possibility of danger to her son, who was evidently the spoiled pet of the family.
Macpherson assured her that she need not be alarmed, and promised at all events to do his best to take care of Tom; and then, instead of Robert, when he was expected, Lily came in equipped for a walk, and Mrs. Echalaz said, “Ah, yes, my daughter, Mr. Macpherson. I’m sorry to say Robert is not well. He reads too hard, I am sure; he is not fit to go, and so I am sending Lily instead. I can’t let Tom”—she changed the expression of the thought in her heart—“Tom would be quite too much for you alone,” she said. “I always send one of them with him—not,” she added, betraying herself still more to Macpherson’s quick perceptions, “not that I doubt your care; I am sure you will not let any harm befall him.”
But her last words, far from being expressive of any such assurance, sounded like a reiterated appeal to him to guard her darling.
Macpherson said he would be very careful, and at length the three were allowed to depart.
Tom lost no time in handing over all his encumbrances to his sister, and before they had walked through the wood at the back of the villa he was away after butterflies, leaving Lily and Macpherson to carry the rods and tackle, the fishing-basket, and the lunch. It was a great relief to the young minister to find that the English girl was neither shy nor self-conscious, but ready to talk with the same pleasant frankness and cordiality that had so struck him in the elder brother.
She watched Tom’s retreating figure with an indulgent smile for a minute, and then turned to her companion. “May I ask you a great many questions, Mr. Macpherson?” she said, with natural directness.