"My dear girl," began Mr. Pollin, "I do not wonder at your suspicion. Really, though, it is without grounds. I simply want to become better acquainted with an interesting and charming niece whom I have hitherto somewhat neglected."
"Then it is a matter of duty," laughed Molly.
"On your part, my dear," replied her uncle, with a gallant bow.
"Then wait a moment," she said, and left the room.
The moment lengthened into twenty minutes, at the end of which time Miss Travers reappeared, gowned for the street.
"By gad, I don't blame the young fools!" muttered Mr. Pollin to himself, as he followed her down the steps. At first their conversation was of trivialities. It soon worked around to books, and Molly found, to her delight and surprise, that her uncle had not altogether forsaken his first love, to wit,—literature.
"I have cloaked myself with the reputation of a gossip," he told her, "to hide my greater sins of serious reading and amateur scribbling. A literary man must be successful from the most worldly point of view, to be considered with any leniency by his friends. So I keep dark, and enjoy myself and the respect of—of the people we know. When I was younger, I was not so wise."
"I have heard about it," returned Molly, "and I always liked you for it. But I think you were a coward to give it up just as soon as you came in for money."
Mr. Pollin smiled somewhat sadly.
"I was never anything more than a dabbler. That is my only excuse for shunning the muse in public," he replied. "But here we are at the door of my humble habitation."