'Of course, I remember you very well,' she said.
'But, dear Philippa,' Mrs. Elstree went on, softly smiling and gently speaking, 'I am no longer Zoe. I am Mrs. Jerome Elstree—I am La Veuve Elstree. I am Armorel's companion.'
'I am sorry,' Philippa replied coldly. Her eyes belied her words. She was not sorry. She did not care whether good or evil had happened to this woman. She was too good a Christian to desire the latter, and not good enough to wish the former. What she had really hoped—whenever she thought of Zoe—was that she might never, never meet her again. And here she was, a guest in her own home, and companion to her own cousin!
Then Mr. Rosevean appeared, and welcomed the new cousin cordially. He seemed a cheerful, good-tempered kind of man, was sixty years of age, bald on the forehead, and of aspect like the conventional Colonel of Punch—in fact, he had been in the Army, and served through the Crimean war, which was quite enough for honour. He passed his time laboriously considering his investments—for he had great possessions—and making small collections which never came to anything. He also wrote letters to the papers, but these seldom appeared.
Then they went in to dinner. The conversation naturally turned at first upon Scilly, their common starting-point, and the illustrious family of the Roseveans.
'As soon as I heard about you, my dear young lady, I set to work to discover our exact relationship. My grandfather, Sir Jacob—you have heard of Sir Jacob Rosevean, Knight of Hanover? Yes; naturally—he was born in the year 1760. He was the younger brother of Captain Emanuel Rosevean, your great-grandfather, I believe.'
'My grandfathers were all named either Emanuel or Methusalem. They took turns.'
'Quite so,' Mr. Rosevean nodded his head in approbation. 'The preservation of the same Christian names gives dignity to the family. Anthony goes with Ashley: Emanuel or Methusalem with Rosevean. The survival of the Scripture name shows how the Puritanic spirit lingers yet in the good old stocks.' Philippa glanced at her mother, mindful of her own remarks on the old families of Scilly. 'We come of a very fine old family, cousin Armorel. I hope you have been brought up in becoming pride of birth. It is a possession which the world cannot give and the world cannot take away. We are a race of Vikings—conquering Vikings. The last of them was, perhaps, my grandfather, Sir Jacob, unless any of the later Roseveans——'
'I am afraid they can hardly be called Vikings,' said Armorel, simply.
'Sir Jacob—my grandfather—was cast, my dear young friend, in the heroic mould—the heroic mould. Nothing short of that. For the services which he rendered to the State at the moment of Britannia's greatest peril, he should have been raised to the House of Lords. But it was a time of giants—and he had to be contented with the simple recognition of a knighthood.'