“Ah, here she is!” Mr Goldsworthy exclaimed heartily.

The sisters were at once in each other’s arms.  Deb, pierced to the heart by Mary’s aged and faded looks, was the most demonstrative of the two; Mary struck her after a moment as being a little reserved and chilly—­as if on the watch to repel benevolence as soon as it should take tangible form.  Deb understood, and was warned to be circumspect.

“And this is our boy—­grown out of knowledge, eh?”

Mary stepped swiftly aside to let Robert come forward, and there was no mistaking the sentiments held in common by the parents with regard to their son.  Their two faces were mirrors for each other, suffused with the same tender pride.

“Perhaps the child has reconciled her to the rest of it,” Deb hazarded a hope.  “She may be happy.”

For Mary smiled and moved alertly about the room.  She accepted her husband’s ostentatious hand and chair, and when he resumed the conversation, or rather restarted it, on the subject of Robert’s achievements at school, she followed where he led, so long as he did not seem leading towards Deb’s pocket, backing him up in the most wifely manner.  “Can it be possible?” Deb kept asking herself, glad at heart to see such signs, which yet lessened her pity for and interest in her sister.  But Mary, with all the pride of the Pennycuicks in her, was not, one to “let on”.  Her skeleton was locked tight in the cupboard it belonged to when visitors were about—­especially such a visitor as this—­and also when they were not about, so far as she could have it so.

So that a sort of air of entertaining “company” pervaded the room.  Deb felt a constraint with her sister, and that she was making no way with her mission.  But Robert stepped into the breach.  With Mary’s son the impulsive lady of Redford was unexpectedly pleased.  There was not a trace of Pennycuick to be discerned in him; nevertheless, he was a good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy.  He sat by her on the sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his chance.  Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the work she had come to do.

“I love boys,” she remarked—­and so she did, as some people love dogs —­“and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren’t we, Robert?”

“It is very good of you to say so, aunt,” Robert replied, with characteristic propriety.

“But, do you know, I don’t think I shall call you Robert,” she went on.  “It has a prim sound”—­but it was the primness of himself that she wanted to break down—­“and it doesn’t suit a boy of your tender years.  I think I’ll call you Bob, if you don’t mind.”

“I wish you would,” he adroitly answered her.

“What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?”