"So Eva married the doctor after all?"
"Oh yes, an old love affair—lights like tinder," and Angel blew a great cloud of smoke from her nostrils. "Aunt Eva was my father's favourite sister, otherwise the butt of the family, because she was plain, unselfish, good, and cowardly. Dr. Marsh, who attended granny, noted her, admired her, and proposed. Eva would have been only too madly, wildly happy to say yes, but there was an uproar in the house. Granny nearly had a fit. She set her sisters on to talk poor Eva to death, and Eva submitted and caved in. She was very miserable, just granny's drudge; when I came to Hill Street I soon found that I was to be aunt—and she niece. I advised, scolded, lectured, and comforted her; assured her that she had her own life to live, not granny's, who had had a very good time. In short, I raised the standard of rebellion!" Here Angel laughed, and looked over at her companion with mischievous and triumphant eyes.
"And there was war in Hill Street," said Gascoigne, wondering how he was to deal with this daring insurrectionary charge, in whom the elements were mixed indeed.
"Civil war, I should call it," she responded. "I took the poor little love affair in hand and patched up the pieces. I scraped acquaintance with Dr. Marsh. He is a good man, works among the poor as well as the rich, and has a very keen sense of honour."
Gascoigne now threw away his unfinished cheroot and sat forward with folded hands. Was he dreaming, or was he listening to little pig-tailed Angel?
"He could not endure snubs," she continued composedly. "He had a modest opinion of himself, and had retired into his shell. By the way," she asked suddenly, "am I boring you? All this interested me so keenly that I forget that it may be deadly dull to other people."
"No—no, pray go on. I am all ears, and keenly interested too."
"Well, I had a long talk with Dr. Marsh; then I met him in the Academy by appointment. I told him I wanted him to explain a subject to me; when he arrived Eva was with me. They were mutually surprised. I told him the 'subject' was in the gem room—and then—I lost them. Was I not clever?" and she laughed like a child of nine.
"Very," came the somewhat gloomy assent.
"Aunt Eva has money of her own; she is past forty, quite old. Why should she not choose her own life, and have some little happiness before she dies?"