“No. My heart I can trust, up to certain limits. But I’m afraid of your head, just as I always was of your father’s. And here’s one more bit of advice: Be careful how you treat that country uncle.”
“The Admiral! Ho! ho! He’s a card.”
“He may be the trump that will lose us the trick. Treat him civilly; yes, even cordially, if you can. And don’t insult him as you did the first time you and he met.”
The young man crossed his legs, and grunted in resignation.
“Well,” he said, “it’s going to be a confounded bore, but, at the very longest, it’ll last but a year. Then Caro will be her own mistress.”
“Yes. But there are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year; remember that.”
“All right, Mater. You can bet on me. The old hayseed and I will be bosom pals. Wait and see.”
The formalities at the lawyers’ took some time. Captain Elisha was absent from the apartment the better part of the following two days. The evenings, however, he spent with his niece and nephew, and, if at all sensitive to sudden changes of the temperature, he must have noticed that the atmosphere of the library was less frigid. Caroline was not communicative, did not make conversation, nor was she in the least familiar; but she answered his questions, did not leave the room when he entered, and seemed inclined to accept his society with resignation, if not with enthusiasm. Even Stephen was less sarcastic and bitter. At times, when his new guardian did or said something which offended his highly cultivated sense of the proprieties, he seemed inclined to burst out with a sneer; but a quick “ahem!” or a warning glance from his sister caused him to remain silent and vent his indignation by kicking a footstool or barking a violent order at the unresisting Edwards. Caroline and her brother had had a heart to heart talk, and, as a result, the all-wise young gentleman promised to make no more trouble than he could help.
“Though, by gad, Caro,” he declared, “it’s only for you I do it! If I had my way the old butt-in should understand exactly what I think of him.”
On Thursday, after luncheon, as Captain Elisha sat in his own room, reading a book he had taken from the library, there came a knock at the door.