"Your father is out, and your uncle is going. I left him buttoning on his great-coat in the hall."
"Oh! I must see Uncle Jasper; forgive me, I must see him for a minute."
She flew downstairs, leaving John Hinton standing alone, a little puzzled and a little vexed. Breathless she arrived in the hall to find her uncle descending the steps; she rushed after him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Uncle Jasper, I want you. Where are you going?"
"Hoity-toity," said the old gentleman, turning round in some surprise, and even dismay when he caught sight of her face. "I am going to the club, child. What next. I sent Hinton up to you. What more do you want?"
"I want you. I have a story to tell you and a question to ask you. You must come back."
"Lottie, I said I would have nothing to do with those books of yours, and I won't. I hate novels, and I hate novelists. Forgive me, child. I don't hate you; but if your father and John Hinton between them mean to spoil a fine woman by encouraging her to become that monster of nature, a blue-stocking, I won't help them, and that's flat. There now. Let me go."
"It is no fiction I want to ask you, Uncle Jasper. It is a true tale, one I have just heard. It concerns me and you and my father. It has pained me very much, but I believe it can be cleared up. I would rather ask you than my father about it, at least at first; but either of you can answer what I want to know; so if you will not listen to me I can speak to my father after dinner."
Uncle Jasper had one of those faces which reveal nothing, and it revealed nothing now. But the keen eyes looked hard into the open gray eyes of the girl who stood by his side.
"What thread out of that tangled skein has she got into her head?" he whispered to himself. Aloud he said, "I will come back to dinner, Charlotte, and afterwards you shall take me up to your little snuggery. If you are in trouble, my dear, you had better confide in me than in your father. He does not—does not look very strong."