"Come in and help me take off my tiara," she said, leading the way into her bedroom. "I rather want to talk to you. Do you know, dear boy, I fancy something's come over you lately, you're changed, somehow. Is it only your success? What brought you over here, in the first place?"
"Spanish churches," answered Harry promptly. He had at one time half decided to confide in Aunt Miriam, but he definitely gave up the idea now. She was too sympathetic, by half. "Do you know Barcelona and Batalha? There's nothing like them."
"No, I've never been to Spain. They say there are fleas, and the beds are not reliable. I also understand that other arrangements are somewhat primitive."
"Oh, not always," replied Harry, smiling. "Still, I don't think I do quite see you in Spain, Aunt Miriam." Then he kissed her good night quite affectionately. He could be very fond of her, from a short distance.
As he strolled down Bond Street next morning Harry sighted an old school acquaintance; a man whom he had known as plain Tommy Erskine, but whom a succession of timely deaths, as he now vaguely remembered, had brought into the direct line of an earldom. Harry wondered if he would remember him; they had not met since their Harrow days. The other's somewhat glassy stare relaxed quickly enough, however, when he saw who it was.
"Well, Harry! Jolly old Harry!" he said in a tone of easy cordiality, as though he had not seen Harry perhaps for a week. "I say, turn around and toddle down to Truefitt's again with me, will you? Fellah puts stinking stuff on my hair three times a week; never do to miss a time, wot? Well, jolly old Harry; wherever have you been all these yahs? Didn't go up to Oxford, did you?"
"No," said Harry, "I went home, to America, and I've stayed there ever since. I'm a thorough Yankee again now; you won't know me. But Tommy, what's all this rot about you being a viscount or something?"
"Oh, bilge! Such a bilgy name, too—Clairloch—like a fellah with phlegm in his throat, wot? Never call me that, though; call me Tommy, and I'll call you Wiggers, just like jolly old times, wot?"
Harry felt himself warming to this over-mannered, over-dressed, over-exercised dandy who was such a simple and affectionate creature beneath his immaculate cutaway, and rather hoped he might see something of him during his stay in London.
"Do you ever ride these days, Tommy?" he asked presently. "That is, would you ride with me some day, if I can scratch up an animal?"