He advanced down the room.
Vada thought that he was in fact very like his portraits, except that he was much thinner and looked considerably older than he had in most of them.
He was very elegant in a grey frock coat that he had worn for his visit to London and, after he had bent to kiss his mother on the cheek, he turned to Vada and held out his hand.
“I must apologise that I was not here to welcome you, Miss Holtz,” he said.
There was something kind and friendly in his voice and, as Vada touched his hand, she knew that she was no longer afraid of him.
She had the feeling that he would understand what she had to say.
When he sat down on a chair and started telling his mother something amusing that had happened to him on the journey, she knew that she liked him.
‘Perhaps,’ she thoug
