“Don’t ‘Aunt Sophie’ me, young man!” I responded, somewhat tartly. “I have no intention of being an aunt to everybody in this vicinity.”
I regretted my abruptness the moment I had spoken, for Owen turned genuinely hurt eyes to me.
“Do you really mind my calling you ‘Aunt’?” he asked.
“I don’t mind you,” I qualified, “but I don’t see why that—that Russian should call me ‘Aunt’.”
He smiled.
“I’m glad you don’t mind me, Aunt Sophie, for I want you to know that I’m hoping, some day, really to be your nephew.”
His dark gray eyes sparkled and his lips compressed determinedly as he looked honestly into my eyes.
I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward and patted the arm that lay across the seat in front of me. Owen did an odd thing for an American; he caught up my hand and touched his lips to it very gently. Then he started up the car and without any further conversation we turned back, for a slightly chilly wind was springing up.
When he helped me out, he took both my hands in his and stood for a moment without speaking, his eyes on mine. Then, “Be my friend with Portia, Aunt Sophie,” he said in a low voice, dropped my hands and went away without looking back.
Portia was sleeping when I returned, and did not waken until long after dinner, which I had to eat alone, as Fu Sing managed to explain that my niece had given orders not to be disturbed. She came into the library about 10 o’clock that night, just when I was telling myself that I ought to go to bed. She was looking especially beautiful, it appeared to me; a wholesome beauty that did my heart good, not that exotic, evil loveliness possessed by the Russian.
“Well, Aunt Sophie, did you and Owen have a heart-to-heart talk this afternoon, and get things nicely settled?”
Her question brought my eyes smartly to her mischievous face.
“Portia Delorme!” (I never could remember her married name to say it at the proper times.) “Just what do you mean to insinuate?”
“Oh, nothing, Auntie.”
But she laughed as she flung herself across a pile of cushions opposite me.
“If you really want to know,” I said with dignity, “that young man is deeply interested in you.”
Portia fumbled with the tassels that adorned her negligee, eyes downcast.
“I’m not so sure of that, Auntie. He’s—he’s been rather taken up by the Princess Tchernova since she’s been haunting his office of late.”
“She’s nothing but a client,” I reminded her.
And then there flashed into my mind a picture of the Princess Irma’s slender white hand, with that strange finger.
“Portia, she has the oddest hand I’ve ever seen. Her third finger is so long that—”
“Aunt Sophie, are you sure?”
My niece had suddenly grown extraordinarily grave. She sat up among the cushions stiffly, her lips parted tensely.
I described the Russian’s hand minutely. I tried, rather stumblingly, to impart the impression (so fleeting, so vague, but so definitely unpleasant) that her intimate smile had made upon me, and finished by saying with considerable acidity that she was the most perfect specimen of finished flirt I had ever met.
Portia, who had listened without interrupting me while I described the princess’ hand, suddenly flashed into vivid life at my last words.
“Ah! And Owen? I mean, how does it appear to him? Does he—is
