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“Why, very well, very well indeed,” he answered, brightly. “It’s very odd, but Edith and I were talking about you all only last night, and wishing we could see you again. Edith is most uncommonly well. During the summer Mrs. Bentley had some rather severer attacks than usual, and the care and anxiety told upon Edith, but since the cooler weather has come she has picked up wonderfully.” He did not say that Mrs. Bentley had shared this gain, and I imagined that he had a reluctance to confess she had not. He went on, “You’re going to stay and spend the night with me, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said; “I’m obliged to be off by the four-o’clock train. But if I may be allowed to name the hospitality I could accept, I should say luncheon.”

“Good!” cried Glendenning, gayly. “Let us go and have it at the Bentleys’.”

“Far be it from me to say where you shall lunch me,” I returned. “The question isn’t where, but when and how, with me.”

He got his hat and stick, and as we started out of his door he began: “You’ll be a little surprised at the informality, perhaps, but I’m glad you take it so easily. It makes it easier for me to explain that I’m almost domesticated at the Bentley homestead; I come and go very much as if it were my own house.”

“My dear fellow,” I said, “I’m not surprised at anything in your relation to the Bentley homestead, and I won’t vex you with any glad inferences.”

“Why,” he returned, a little bashfully, “there’s no explicit change. The affair is just where it has been all along. But with the gradual decline in Mrs. Bentley–I’m afraid you’ll notice it–she seems rather to want me about, and at times I’m able to be of use to Edith, and so–“

He stopped, and I said, “Exactly.”

He went on: “Of course it’s rather anomalous, and I oughtn’t to let you get the impression that she has actually conceded anything. But she shows herself much more–er, shall I say?–affectionate, and I can’t help hoping there may be a change in her mood which will declare itself in an attitude more favorable to–“

I said again, “Exactly,” and Glendenning resumed:

“In spite of Edith’s not having been quite so well as usual–she’s wonderfully well now–it’s been a very happy summer with us, on account of this change. It seems to have come about in a very natural way with Mrs. Bentley, and out of a growing regard which I can’t specifically account for, as far as anything I’ve done is concerned.”

“I think I could account for it,” said I. “She must be a stonier-hearted old lady than I imagine if she hasn’t felt your goodness, all along, Glendenning.”

“Why, you’re very kind,” said the gentle creature. “You tempt me to repeat what she said, at the only time she expressed a wish to have me oftener with them: ‘You’ve been very patient with a contrary old woman. But I sha’n’t make you wait much longer.'”

“Well, I think that was very encouraging, my dear fellow.”

“Do you?” he asked, wistfully. “I thought so too, at first, but when I told Edith she could not take that view of it. She said that she did not believe her mother had changed her mind at all, and that she only meant she was growing older.”

“But, at any rate,” I argued, “it was pleasant to have her make an open recognition of your patience.”

“Yes, that was pleasant,” he said, cheerfully again, “And it was the beginning of the kind of relation that I have held ever since to her household. I am afraid I am there a good half of my time, and I believe I dine there oftener than I do at home. I am quite on the footing of a son, with her.”

“There are some of the unregenerate, Glendenning,” I made bold to say, “who think it is your own fault that you weren’t on the footing of a son-in-law with her long ago. If you’ll excuse my saying so, you have been, if anything, too patient. It would have been far better for all if you had taken the bit in your teeth six or seven years back–“