CHAPTER XI
ON THE WINGS OF LIFE
It was on the morning after Gerty's conversation with Adams that Laura carried the news of her engagement to Uncle Percival.
"I've something really interesting for you this morning," she began, taking his withered little hand in hers as she sat down on the high footstool before his chair.
His wandering blue eyes fixed her for a moment, then, turning restlessly, travelled to his flute which lay silent on the table on his elbow.
"Ah, but I'm ahead of you for once," he remarked with his amiable toothless smile, "there's a new batch of rabbits in the yard and I've already seen 'em. Don't tell Rosa, my dear," he cautioned in a whisper, "or she'll be sure to drown 'em everyone."
Releasing his hand from her clasp, he reached for his flute, and, with a pathetic delight in the presence of his enforced listener, raised the mouth of the instrument to his lips. The tune he played was "The Last Rose of Summer," and Laura sat patiently at his side until the end. With the final note, even as he laid the flute lovingly across his knees, she saw that the music had strengthened and controlled his enfeebled mind.
"I want to tell you that I shall be married in the autumn, dear Uncle Percival," she said with a renewed effort to penetrate the senile abstraction in which he lived.
"Married!" repeated the old man, with an indignant surprise for which she was entirely unprepared. "Married! Why, what on earth makes you do a ridiculous thing like that? It's out of the question," he continued with an angry vehemence, "it is utterly and absurdly out of the question."
For an instant it seemed to Laura that she had absolutely no response to offer.