“Whew!” Paul bent his head, and ploughed his way against it, without looking to the right or to the left. The branches groaned and tossed, creaking as if they were being torn from the trunks of the swaying trees.
Then all at once, with a crash a dead bough fell in front of him, missing him by not more than fifteen inches. Paul stopped. The very elements seemed opposed to his unmannerly flight, and again he hesitated, looked back, and saw the friendly, ruddy windows of the Bakery. Thirty miles in this tempest! He smiled sheepishly, and then frowned. His impetuousness had put him in a very ridiculous position. His pride rebelled at the idea of returning, and with the thought of Carl’s smothered amusement, came the memory of his cousin’s inhospitable speech. On the other hand, he saw that it was no less absurd to follow up his plan of flight, and the streak of common sense underlying his hasty, high-handed nature told him that it was less foolish to go back and undertake the immediate problem that had been thrust upon him, than to plunge himself into the serious difficulties that his adventure would entail. And at length, inwardly raging at his own folly, he retraced his steps.
As the dining room door opened, Mr. Lambert looked up, started to remove his spectacles, and then with a start, adjusted them more accurately. Paul, who had left his cap and bundle in the hall tried to stand in the shadow so that his clothes would not be noticed. After a short silence, Mr. Lambert preferring to observe nothing extraordinary in his nephew’s appearance, folded up his spectacles, put them in the breast pocket of his frock coat and said, pleasantly,
“Well? What have you decided?”
Paul cleared his throat.
“I have decided—I have decided—” he finished by spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders.
“To undertake your—er—responsibilities?” prompted Mr. Lambert, as if he were administering an oath.
“To learn how to bake pies,” said Paul, feebly, and then mumbling some vague excuse he backed out of the room, leaving Mr. Lambert to indulge in a short chuckle.
Paul hid himself in the bakeshop until he felt reasonably sure that his cousin had gone to bed, and then, boots in hand tiptoed shamefacedly up to the bedroom, and began to undress in the dark. But Carl was not asleep, and after listening to Paul’s smothered exclamations as he struggled with wet button holes and laces, could not resist a polite jibe.
“Oh,” came in interested tones from the bed, “where did you go, cousin?”