You know, they
thwarted Uncle Hugh in every possible way. My grandfather was a
composite of those two, and all of them adored my uncle and contradicted
him and watched him until he went over the border. And they're so dead
scared that I'm going to follow him some day that they let me do quite
as I please." He passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away
cobwebs. "Will you be so good as to put your veil up."
"Why--why, certainly!" Mrs. Shirley faltered. She uncovered her face and
Hugh nodded to the witness within.
"Yes, he'd have liked that," he told himself. "Lots of expression and
those beautiful haunted shadows about the eyes." He laughed gently.
"Don't look so frightened. I don't bite. Just humour me, as Uncle
Winthrop is signalling you to do. You understand, don't you, that Uncle
Hugh was the romance and the adventure of my life? I'm still saturated
with him, but there was lots of him that I could never get through to.
There never was a creature better worth knowing, and he couldn't show
me, or else I had blind spots. There were vast tracts of undiscovered
country in him, as far as I was concerned--lands of wonder, east of the
sun and west of the moon--that sort of thing. But I knew that there was
a certain woman who must have been there, who held the heart of the
mystery, and to-day, when this incredible chance came--when you came--I
made up my mind that I was not going to be restrained nor baffled by the
customs of my tribe.
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