'Oh, yes, they are. And I will confess that Nan has improved in one way. She isn't as cheeky as she used to be; she's awfully good-natured—she'd do anything for you. When I get into trouble, I know Nan will be my sheet-anchor.'
'Then I hope the cable will hold,' said Frank King.
They reached Brighton. Tom Beresford found his companion strangely silent and preoccupied. The fact was that Captain Frank was very unusually agitated. He hoped she might not be alone. Then he strove to convince himself that she must be quite altered now. She must be quite different from the young girl who walked up the Splügen Pass with him. Then she was scarcely over seventeen; now she was over twenty. He would see some one he might fail to recognise; not the Nan of former days; not the Nan that had long ago enchained him with her frank odd ways, and her true eyes.
They drove first to a hotel, and secured a bed; then they went to Brunswick Terrace. When they went upstairs to the drawing-room, they found it empty.
'They can't be all out,' said Mr. Tom; 'I'll go and find them.'
He left; and Captain Frank began to try to quiet down this uncalled-for perturbation. Why should he fear to see her? The past was over. Never was any decision given more irrevocably; even if there had been any question as to an open future, that had been disposed of by the news that had met him on his return to England. It ought only to be a pleasure to him to see her. He thought she would welcome him in a kind way; and he would show her that he quite accepted circumstances as they were. Only—and this he kept repeating to himself—he must expect to be disillusionised. Nan would no longer be that former Nan. Some of the freshness and the young wonder would be gone; she would be eligible as a friend; that, on the whole, was better.
Well, the door opened, and he turned quickly, and then his heart jumped. No; she had not changed at all, he said to himself, as she advanced towards him with a smile and a frankly extended hand. The same pleasant eyes, the same graceful, lithe figure, the same soft voice, as she said—
'Oh, how do you do, Captain King?'
And yet he was bewildered. There was something strange.
'I—I am very glad to see you again, Miss Anne,' he stammered.