'Ah!' Hazel exclaimed,then again submitting to circumstances,'My will had been the law of the houseand the peopleand of myself.Do you understand, sir?'
'Where were your guardians?' said Rollo with cool self-command.
'In my way just often enough to give zest to all other times and places.'
'And what is your opinion of the one guardian you have left? just as a curiosity, I should like to hear it.'
'He gave so fine a comparative description of himself beforehand,' said Hazel with the laugh in her voice. 'It would be quite presuming to suppose he does not mean to act up to it.'
Dane was silent, perhaps considering how he should answer her; for loosening one hand, he stood pushing back the thick curls from her face, looking down at it thoughtfully. Then in the same tone he had used before, he asked, "if she had not learned love's liberty yet?"
'In what sense?' she said, after a moment's hesitation.
'In the sense of being rather more a free and independent sovereign than at any previous time of your life.'
Hazel shook her head. 'If you make me go into that,' she said, 'I shall surely say something you will not understand. I have been as full of freaks this winter as ever in all my life before.'
'I am moved with curiosity to hear what you can say that I shall not understand.'