“Would you like to try it?”
“Yes. I would.”
“Well, why don’t you? You could find some place—”
“That isn’t the point,” interrupted Paul, looking directly at his uncle, “it’s up to you, Uncle Peter. You told me that I wasn’t to touch a paint-brush while I was in your house. And I haven’t. But I—”
“Well, you’ll let him, won’t you, father? He might as well have a go at it.”
“My boy, I think it is hardly—”
“But it’s only a little matter, father. I’d like to see how he’d make out. We’d feel pretty fine if he should win anything, and if he doesn’t, there’s nothing lost.”
Mr. Lambert bit his lip. But at that time he could no more have refused his son’s slightest wish than he could have struck him.
“Well, well—go ahead if you want, Paul. I am sure I wish you every success.” It was stiffly and unwillingly said, but it was a victory nonetheless, and Paul did not know whether to be more amazed at his uncle’s concession or at Carl’s intercession. Jane, her face beaming with delight, started to clap her hands, and then realizing that any evidences of unseemly joy might have unpleasant results, quickly folded them in her lap.
And so it came about, through the play of circumstances, that the one member of the Lambert family who had been so bitterly inimical to Paul for eight months assumed the rôle of benefactor, and gallantly squared his debt by a few right words spoken at exactly the right moment.