“Yes,” he said, quite calmly, “don’t be frightened. I want to have a good account of them and that is what has brought me to you.”
Once more Dolly stared at him in consternation. She wanted to be angry and think him impertinent, but he was not impertinent.
“Don’t be frightened,” her strange companion went on. “I want to hear all that is good of them. They tell me that I won’t hear anything that is not good from you.”
“Mr. —— sir! —— How can I talk,” cried Dolly, with crimson cheeks, “of my friends to you? I—don’t know you. Why do you want to question any one about them? Who told you I would say nothing that was not good? Does anybody think,” cried Dolly, her eyes flaming, “that I would say either good or bad, for any one, that was not true?”
“I cannot answer so many questions at once,” said the little gentleman; “besides, that is not what I want; I want to ask, not to answer. I want to know about my—relations. When I see them, perhaps they may not be very civil to me; they may think me a bore.”
“Oh!” cried Dolly, “certainly they will be civil. Alice is too kind for anything else, and Paul—Paul is a gentleman,” she said, raising her head. A softness came over the girl’s eyes. She had no thought of betraying herself; perhaps indeed she was not aware that there was anything to betray; but in spite of herself, a certain subdued and dreamy glow, a kind of haze of golden light, came into her brown eyes at Paul’s name.
“Well, that is something,” said the stranger; “you don’t think then that they will take to me much? but because the one is kind, and the other a gentleman——”
“That was not what I meant. Am I to pay you compliments to your face?” said Dolly, stopping short and looking suddenly up, half impatient, half amused.
“Certainly, if you wish to,” he cried, promptly. “Oh, yes—do not be shy. I should not at all mind a compliment or two; indeed I think I should like them. Do not stand upon ceremony. If you can say seriously that you think me so nice that Alice will like me at once, and your Paul claim me as a brother——”
“He is not my Paul,” cried Dolly, with another hot blush. “I do not like such a way of speaking. And, Mr. ——”