“Next Sunday.”
“All right; there is a pretty birthday gift coming to you next Sunday if you will promise, after that day, to stop calling me ‘uncle.’”
The wide-open eyes opened still wider.
“Why—I thought you liked it!”
“I do—from Mary Louise; from little girls generally. But when you say it, it makes me feel as though my teeth were coming loose and my hair falling out—old and decrepit, you know.”
“I wish you’d listen!” she laughed. “What do you want me to call you—after next Sunday?—‘Misteh Bromley?’”
“Oh, dear me, no; that is ever so much worse! Couldn’t you make it just plain ‘Harry,’ without the ‘uncle’?”
He saw a faint wave of color rising to the fair neck and cheeks, and the down-dropped eyes were no longer those of a child.
“I—I’ll try,” she promised; then, as one stepping lightly from ground tremulous to ground firm: “What is the improper question that isn’t going to be improper?”
“It is about Jean, and if you don’t want to answer it you can just make a face at me and tell me it is none of my blessed business. Does Jean—do you think she cares especially about—er—Philip?”