“Ah, that sounds like the Roy of old!”
“But it is. A beastly shame. What made you carry that little girl?”
“Her father fell lame, and she didn’t take to other people, I could not stand the wailing. He’s a good honest fellow—badly off through no fault of his own.”
“Shame!” muttered Roy again. “What is the reason for your all being sent back now, I wonder?”
“I don’t know.”
Ivor seemed incapable of starting remarks himself; and Roy, realising his condition, sank into silence, unable still to take his eyes from that worn face. They reached the house, and he sprang down. “Shall I go and tell them?”
“No—no need. I’ll come. Can you pay the driver? I’m cleared out completely.”
In the salon upstairs were Colonel and Mrs. Baron, and with them was Lucille, as was often now her custom. She had gradually become almost a member of the Baron family, and one and all they were extremely fond of her. When Roy flung the door open, and marched triumphantly in, his arm through Ivor’s, one startled “Ah-h!” broke from her, before the other two had grasped what was happening; and then her face, usually almost without colour, became crimson. Her eyes shone, the lips remaining apart.
“Denham!” the Colonel and his wife exclaimed.
Colonel Baron’s grasp of Ivor’s hand and his fixed gaze were like those of Roy. Mrs. Baron’s delight was even more plainly expressed. She had long been as an elder sister to Denham, and when he bent to kiss her hand, with the grave deference which he always showed towards her, she did what she had never done before—gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek.