“O Lord, yes!  It brings it all back,” said Hugh, miserably.  “I’m sorry if I said anything offensive sir, but—­” He gave it up.  “You know I have a devil, sometimes.”  He gave a half-embarrassed laugh.

“Offensive—­if you have said anything offensive?” Miss Fowler boiled over.  “Is that all you are going to say, Winthrop?  If so—­”

Mr. Fowler lifted a warning hand.  The house door was opening.  Then the discreet steps of Gannett came up the hall, followed by something lighter and more resilient.

“At least don’t give me away to the lady the very first thing,” said Hugh, lightly.  He shoved the papers into the drawers and swung it shut.  His heart was beating quite ridiculously.  He would know at last—­What wouldn’t he know?  “Uncle Hugh’s girl, Uncle Hugh’s girl,” he told himself, and his temperamental responsiveness to the interest and the mystery of life expanded like a sea-anemone in the Gulf Stream.

Gannett opened the door, announced in his impeccable English, “Mrs. Shirley,” and was not.

* * * * *

A very small, very graceful woman hesitated in the doorway.  Hugh’s first impression was surprise that there was so little of her.  Then his always alert subconsciousness registered: 

“A lady, yes, but a country lady; not de par le monde.  Pleasantly rather than well dressed; those veils are out.”  He had met her at once with outstretched hand and the most cordial, “I am glad to see you, Mrs. Shirley.”  Then he mentioned the names of his aunt and uncle.  He did not dare to leave anything to Aunt Maria.

That lady made a movement that might or might not have been a gesture of recognition.  Mr. Fowler, who had risen, inclined his handsome head with a polite murmur and indicated a chair which faced the light.  Mrs. Shirley sat, instead, upon the edge of the sofa, which happened to be nearer.  With her coming Hugh’s expansiveness had suffered a sudden rebuff.  A feeling of dismal conventionality permeated the room like a fog.  He plumbed it in vain for the wonder and the magic that ought to have been the inescapable aura of Uncle Hugh’s girl.  Was this the mighty ocean, was this all?  She was a little nervous, too.  That was a pity.  Nervousness in social relations was one of the numerous things that Aunt Maria never forgave.

Then the stranger spoke, and Hugh’s friendliness went out to the sound as to something familiar for which he had been waiting.

“It is very good of you to let me come,” she said.

“But she must be over forty,” Hugh told himself, “and her voice is young.  So was his always.”  It was also very natural and moving and not untinged by what Miss Fowler called the Southern patois.  “And her feet are young.”

Mr. Fowler uttered another polite murmur.  There was no help from that quarter.  She made another start.

“It seemed to me—­” she addressed Miss Fowler, who looked obdurate.  She cast a helpless glance at the cat, who opened surprising topaz eyes and looked supercilious.  Then she turned to Hugh.  “It seemed to me,” she said, steadily, “that I could make you understand—­I mean I could express myself more clearly if I could see you, than I could by writing, but—­it is rather difficult.”