He rose slowly from his chair, and laid his hand upon his big bolt.
“Now,” he soliloquised, “to what emotion shall I be giving admittance if I draw back this bolt? Well, I may say to any I please, since it is the philosopher’s prerogative to command his emotions as a captain commands his soldiers. Well, now, the emotion I will summon for this interview will be calmness—icy, impenetrable calmness. Nothing shall induce me to lose my temper, no matter how he may try it. Confound it! what are you in such a hurry for?” This was added in a loud, irritable tone, as the raps increased in peremptoriness. “Well, now you are let in, what do you want?” This was asked as, the bolt drawn back, he stood face to face with his nephew.
The Professor was short and stout, with bushy eyebrows and bald head; the young man who faced him was dark, thin-featured, and tall; decidedly good-looking, but also as decidedly his good-looking face had a cloud of annoyance upon it.
“Well, I don’t know that I’ve very much to say, except that I think of returning to town tonight, and—”
The Professor’s face grew crimson. “Going!” he repeated, “what on earth do you mean? Does Nellie know?”
“Nellie knows, and Nellie doesn’t care twopence-halfpenny whether I go or stay.”
The Professor began to storm. “If she doesn’t care twopence-halfpenny the fault is yours,” he said. “I’ve given you every opportunity—”
Piers laid his hand on his uncle’s arm. “Stop,” he said, “don’t let there be any mistake. I’ve been only too glad to make use of every opportunity you’ve given me, and this afternoon, as we came back from the ice, I asked her to marry me.”
“And she said?”
“She said that she couldn’t make up her mind whether she would or she wouldn’t.”
“And you said?”
“I told her that the mere fact of her answering in that fashion showed that she had made up her mind; that this wasn’t the answer a girl would give to a man if she really cared for him.”
The Professor threw up his hands, and turned up his eyes. “Of all the pieces of folly,” he began, “to take such an answer as final! Why, you’ll no sooner be out of the house than she’ll want you back again.”
“Will she? I very much doubt it.”
“A pretty girl, and twenty thousand pounds,” ejaculated the Professor, and again he threw up his hands and eyes.
“Two very good things apart,” interrupted Piers; “but conjoined not so nice, especially if the girl gives herself airs on the strength of her twenty thousand pounds.”
“Confound it, let me speak, will you!” but another rap at the door interrupted him now, and without waiting for permission the door opened, and Nellie came in.
She was small and slight, with large violet eyes, and such coils and masses of dark hair wound about her head that it seemed as if it must be almost too much for the small head to carry. Her face, usually pale, was flushed with exercise and the keen, frosty air. She was dressed in a seal fur from head to foot, and dangled her pretty seal cap on one finger.
“I’ve come to announce visitors,” she said, addressing her uncle. But the Professor scarcely seemed to hear her, his thoughts were full of his grievance.
“Piers is going,” he exclaimed, still at fever heat, “going—going—going—do you understand?”
“Is he?” was Nellie’s calm rejoinder. For a moment she turned to Piers: “Oh, if you must go today, you’d better go into the drawing-room at once, and see the visitors. They are cousins, and are most anxious to see you, for they say that your father and their father were great chums.”
Piers, glad to escape from Nellie’s presence, left the room immediately.
The Professor’s attention was caught now. “More relatives,” he groaned, “I didn’t know I had another in the world save and except the Spanish Harleys.”
“The very same,” said Nellie. “It is they who are downstairs. I met them on the doorstep as I came in. They own to the names of Beatrix and Guy.”
“Beatrix and Guy! Bless my soul! Are they going to throw themselves on my hands, because I’m the head of the family? They went to Granada fifteen years ago with their father and mother—the mother was in a consumption and their father turned wine-grower—for the sake of the climate. Both died, I remember. Ah, time passes!” He gave a sigh to the memory of the days gone by. Then a sudden terror seized him. “What are they like, Nellie? Tell me quickly.”
“Oh, Guy is very, very handsome, tall, fair, and very distinguished-looking, a lovely moustache, and—”
“Confound his moustache! What is she like, that’s what I want to know?”
“Oh, I suppose some people would call her handsome, but she is not in the least the style I admire. She is very tall, and dressed very fashionably, the loveliest furs—”
“Confound her furs! Does she look—look—lively, and—and active, and—and—”
“I should think she was very lively, yes, and active too; for, although I only stayed five minutes in the room with them, she told me she could never keep still for long together, she must always be doing something for somebody.”
“That’s it,” cried the Professor, excitedly. “That’s Beatrix to the backbone. When I last saw her she was a handsome tomboy of fifteen or sixteen, and I have a vivid recollection of her climbing the old yew-tree, and dropping my Plato into the thrush’s nest. Then, when I fetched a ladder for I was never good at climbing—and had got well into the upper branches, she made off with the ladder,
