"To start fair!" he repeated, somewhat vacantly.
"You see," Hazel continued, drawing up a low chair, and seating herself in friendly proximity to her august relative, "I have heard of you all my life as being so unapproachable and—and even rude, sometimes, if you don't mind my telling you so. But mother says you were not always like that. She says that when she was a girl you were fond of her and very kind to her. So for years I have felt convinced that your—your manners were chiefly owing to—to loneliness and gout." For the first time Hazel allowed her glance to rest pitifully upon the poor, bandaged foot, that she was careful not to touch. "Which must be a very terrible combination," she added sympathetically.
"If you have come here to pity me, the sooner you leave the better," he answered irascibly, a very paroxysm of twinges rendering civil speech for the moment an impossibility.
Hazel saw him wince, and understood.
"Oh, I have not," she returned gently. "At least, I can keep it to myself. I know how annoying pity can be in certain moods. But I hoped I might amuse and interest you," she added wistfully, "almost before you knew that such a thing was possible, by calling upon you and giving you all the family news."
Mr. Desborough moved uneasily in his chair. "I don't want to hear anything about them—not a word, do you hear?"
"Don't you?" said Hazel, and she sighed. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," he answered savagely. "I have done with my niece, with the whole family, and their begging letters——"
He stopped short, for Hazel, flushing scarlet, then turning very pale, rose proudly from her seat and stood confronting him.
"Uncle Percival," she said, her voice vibrating with anger, "say anything you like of me, and if I cannot stand it I can go away; but you shall not say a word against my mother or the boys—you had better not even mention them in my hearing. My mother is—well, never mind, I would rather not discuss her with you; and my brothers are dear, good fellows, every one of them, and—and courteous gentlemen, who would never speak of an absent lady as you have done. I want to be tolerant," she added, "but unless you take it back, unless you retract what you said, I shall feel obliged to leave you at once."