His manner was still boyish at times, and Malcolm was glad to hear the old ringing laugh.
Cedric's wound had been deep, but it was not incurable--time and change of scene had been potent factors in the cure.

Malcolm listened with a great deal of interest to the scheme that Cedric intended to lay before his sisters.
It appeared that in the Bavarian highlands he had stumbled across an old school-fellow, Harry Strickland.
"We were chums at Haileybury," went on Cedric.

"Harry was always a good sort; but his people sent him to Cambridge, so I lost sight of him.

I knew his father was dead and that an uncle had offered him a home--his mother had died when he was quite a little chap, and he had no brothers or sisters--but when we met in the inn that wet night--when Dunlop and I were nearly drowned getting down from the Alp--he told me that a fit of gout had carried off his uncle quite unexpectedly." "Poor chap, he seems a bit lonely," observed Malcolm sympathetically.
"Yes, he was mooning about, and rather bothered what to do next.

So he was delighted at the idea of joining some of our excursions.