She looked at me thoughtfully. "You seem to me to have changed a great deal lately."
This was in the nature of a frontal attack, but I met it calmly. "Yes," I said, "I have changed."
"And for the better," she added. "Stuart, when you first came back from South America, I disliked you intensely."
I bowed. "You were quite justified in doing so," I said.
"I don't know what your life out there had been," she went on, "so it's not fair that I should judge you, but all my instincts seemed to tell me that you were bad—bad through and through. I dreaded your influence over Maurice."
She paused. The idea of anyone demoralising Maurice, if my judgment of that young man was anything like correct, struck me as bordering on the humorous. However, Aunt Mary's penetration into Northcote's character was sufficiently startling to prevent my smiling.
"It will be Maurice's own fault," I said bluntly, "if he comes to any harm through me."
She laid her hand on my arm. "I believe you, Stuart," she said. "Since you have been down here this time, I seem, somehow, to have reversed all my previous opinions of you. It's curious, because, as a rule, my first impressions never alter."
"I am glad to provide the exception," I said. "And I'm glad, too, that Maurice has someone who takes an interest in him."
"Ah!" she said; "it's about Maurice that I want to speak to you." Then she hesitated a moment. "I am afraid Maurice is getting into bad hands," she went on. "There is something on his mind—something that has changed him terribly the last few months. It may be his money affairs—I know he has been betting very heavily on horses—but I can't help thinking that there's some other trouble as well."