'Of course he must,' said Miss Mildmay. 'I am not going out this evening as I usually do. I have given myself a holiday in honour of your arrival, so pray come back as soon as you have ordered your room at the _Swan_, Mr Denison,' And Marmaduke smilingly consented.
This little incident seemed to have thawed them all.
'I will show you your rooms now,' said Miss Mildmay, when, the young man had gone. 'You two girls are to be together of course, and Eugene's little room is on the next floor.'
Eugene, who was following with his sister Frances, whose hand he held, here squeezed it while he looked up in her face with anxiety.
'Never mind,' she whispered. 'It's quite a little house compared to granny's, Eugene. You can't be far away. Very likely you'll be just overhead, and so if you want us in the night you can knock on the floor.'
This seemed to satisfy the child, and the sight of his room, which though small was bright and cheerful, went still further to reassure him.
'It will be nice to have a room of my own,' he said bravely. 'At granny's I slept in the night nursery with nurse.'
'But you're a big boy now, you know,' said Jacinth, hastily, as if afraid of her aunt thinking him babyish.
'Yes, of course,' agreed Miss Mildmay. 'I cannot promise you that you will find everything here the same as at your poor grandmother's. You always called her your grandmother, I suppose,' she went on, turning to Jacinth, 'though she was not really any blood relation.'
The girl's lip quivered, but she controlled herself. 'We--we never thought about that,' she said. 'And then, of course, she was Uncle Manny's own mother, and we are so _very_ fond of him.'
'Ah! he seems a nice young fellow, but so very young, and Mrs Denison was quite elderly. But she was more than middle-aged when she married, of course,' said Miss Mildmay.
There was a slight, almost indescribable tone of condescension or disparagement in her voice, the reason of which I will explain. Both the girls were conscious of it, but it affected them in different ways.
'Ye--es,' began Jacinth, hesitatingly, 'I know'----
'You are not explaining it properly to Aunt Alison, Jacinth. You know you're not. It wasn't only or principally for Uncle Marmy's sake that we loved dear granny. She was as sweet and good to us as she could be, and I'd have loved her awfully if she hadn't been--been any relation--at all;' but here the little girl ignominiously burst into tears.