"Oh!" Hench started, and was on the point of revealing the story of the advertisement and his adventure, when he checked himself prudently and made quite a different remark. "But if Uncle Madoc was such a rotter, why is Gwen such a nice girl, and I am sure a good girl?"
"She is all that," endorsed Mrs. Perage heartily. "And if your father was such a selfish profligate--I don't wish to hurt your filial feelings, but he was--why are you such a nice young man?"
Hench coloured at the compliment. "I may be a profligate also."
"Pooh!" said Mrs. Perage with supreme contempt, "don't you think that I am able to read faces? Yours is a good one and so is Gwen's. The decency of you both comes in each case from the mother's side, I expect, for both your fathers were--what they were. Children of Old Nick, I call them. You had a bad time with that father of yours, I'll be bound?"
"Well"--Hench winced--"he was not a very amiable parent, I must admit, although I wouldn't say that to any one save you."
Mrs. Perage bent her keen old eyes on him, read between the lines, and laughed in a short rasping manner after the style of a fox barking. "Just as I thought, young man. Owain was a selfish, cruel animal, and so was Madoc. He gave you as bad a time as Madoc did Gwen."
"I rather gathered from Gwen's absence of mourning that she had no great love for her father," remarked Hench musingly. "Your powers of observation are great, Owain. Gwen and her father got on about as well together as a ferret and a rabbit; she being the last and he the first. But for me I don't know what the poor girl would have done. She would have run away from home, I expect. However, she always came to me when her father was particularly trying, and now she has come to me altogether. With me she will stay, until you take her away."
Hench raised himself on his elbow and blushed in a delightfully youthful manner. "What makes you say that?" he asked confusedly.
"Am I a fool?" queried Mrs. Perage grimly. "Doesn't a cat love cream, and is not a young man likely to fall in love with one whose life he has saved, provided that one is charming and good. Go to, my boy." She spoke quite in the style of her nephew Jim. "I can see through a brick wall, I suppose. But all this doesn't explain why you are masquerading here under your father's false name. Come now, tell me all about it."
Hench did not do as she asked him, even though she was such a sensible old lady, for he thought that the time was not yet ripe for him to speak freely about his Gipsy Stile adventure. Therefore he told her the same story that he had told to Mr. Gilberry. "And you see I was right to meet my cousin under a feigned name," he concluded, "for had I come as Owain Evans she would have been prejudiced against me."