“Well?” resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare and Adrian followed.  “I really never saw you looking so handsome.  There’s something about your face—­look at me—­you needn’t blush.  You’ve grown to an Apollo.  That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes you admirably—­ and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie.  Your style is irreproachable, quite a style of your own!  And nothing eccentric.  You have the instinct of dress.  Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as much as anything else.  Boy!—­you see, I can’t forget old habits.  You were a boy when I left, and now!—­Do you see any change in him, Clare?” she turned half round to her daughter.

“Richard is looking very well, mama,” said Clare, glancing at him under her eyelids.

“I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.—­Take my arm, Richard.  Are you afraid of your aunt?  I want to get used to you.  Won’t it be pleasant, our being all in town together in the season?  How fresh the Opera will be to you!  Austin, I hear, takes stalls.  You can come to the Forey’s box when you like.  We are staying with the Foreys close by here.  I think it’s a little too far out, you know; but they like the neighbourhood.  This is what I have always said:  Give him more liberty!  Austin has seen it at last.  How do you think Clare looking?”

The question had to be repeated.  Richard surveyed his cousin hastily, and praised her looks.

“Pale!” Mrs. Doria sighed.

“Rather pale, aunt.”

“Grown very much—­don’t you think, Richard?”

“Very tall girl indeed, aunt.”

“If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard!  I’m sure I give her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still continues.  I think she does not prosper away from her old companion.  She was accustomed to look up to you, Richard”—­

“Did you get Ralph’s letter, aunt?” Richard interrupted her.

“Absurd!” Mrs. Doria pressed his arm.  “The nonsense of a boy!  Why did you undertake to forward such stuff?”

“I’m certain he loves her,” said Richard, in a serious way.

The maternal eyes narrowed on him.  “Life, my dear Richard, is a game of cross-purposes,” she observed, dropping her fluency, and was rather angered to hear him laugh.  He excused himself by saying that she spoke so like his father.

“You breakfast with us,” she freshened off again.  “The Foreys wish to see you; the girls are dying to know you.  Do you know, you have a reputation on account of that”—­she crushed an intruding adjective—­ “System you were brought up on.  You mustn’t mind it.  For my part, I think you look a credit to it.  Don’t be bashful with young women, mind!  As much as you please with the old ones.  You know how to behave among men.  There you have your Drawing-room Guide!  I’m sure I shall be proud of you.  Am I not?”

Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly.