Read "A Young Man's Year" by Antonio Hope online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
She met him just as of old; she gave him the same gay, gracious, almost caressing welcome when she found him at the foot of the stairs, awaiting her arrival and ready to escort her to his room. She put her arm through his and let him lead her there; then seated herself by the fire and, peeling off her gloves, looked up at him as he stood leaning his arm on the mantelpiece. She smiled as she used; she was the same Bernadette in her simple cordiality, the same too in her quiet sumptuousness. Only in her eyes, as they rested on his face, he thought he saw a new expression, a look of question, a half-humorous apprehension, which seemed to say, "How are you going to treat me, Cousin Arthur?" Not penitence, nor apology, but just an admission that he might have his own views about her and might treat her accordingly. "Tell me your views then -- let's know how we stand towards one another!"
Perhaps it was because some such doubt found a place in her mind that she turned promptly, and in a rather business-like way, to the practical object of her visit.