Hazel moved restively in her chair. "I wish I had not come here," she said rebelliously.
Paul waited, and then, with a little gasp, it all came out.
"It is about Hugh. Are you having him in—in charity?" Her voice sank to a whisper upon the last, fateful word, and she lay back in her chair, and tightly closed her eyes. What would he say? How would he take it? She had not the courage to look at him.
But Paul never seemed to fail her—he did not fail her now. "Hazel," he said quietly, after a long pause, "what put such an idea into your head?"
"Uncle Percival," Hazel answered laconically, with startling promptitude. Slowly she opened her eyes, but she turned her look away from him.
Paul rose to his feet and quietly began to pace the floor. "Uncle Percival ought to be—boiled," he said at length, indignantly. "How came he to mention the topic at all to you?"
"I called upon him," Hazel rejoined; and she proceeded to relate what had passed between herself and her relative.
"You are a plucky child to have 'bearded' him," Paul observed, when she had finished. He had heard much of "Uncle Percival," but little to his credit.
"Oh, he was not so bad," Hazel said, modestly disclaiming the compliment. "I was frightened of him at first, but he got nicer and nicer. In the end," she added naïvely, "he asked me to kiss him. That was quite friendly of him, was not it?"
"Very friendly indeed," Paul answered, his views concerning "Uncle Percival" undergoing a quick change. "I had no idea he was so—so human. And—and—did you?"