I want the truth and I'm prepared to give it. From
the shoulder. If you will tell me everything you know about him I
promise to tell you everything I know. You'll want to--" The sound of
the closing door made him turn. The room behind him was empty. His
manner quieted instantly. "That's uncommonly tactful of them.... You
won't think that they meant any discourtesy by leaving?" he added,
anxiously. "They wouldn't do that."
"Oh, I'm sure not! Your uncle made me understand," faltered Mrs.
Shirley. "They knew you could speak more freely without them."
"He's wonderful with the wireless," Hugh agreed. "But they were in
terror, anyway, as to how freely I was about to speak before them. They
can't stand this. Everything really human seems pretty well alien to
Uncle Winthrop. He's exhibit A of the people who consider civilization
a mistake. And my aunt Maria is a truly good woman--charities and all
that--but if you put a rabbit in her brain it would incontinently curl
up and die in convulsions."
She laughed helplessly, and Hugh reported an advance.
"Nevertheless," he added quaintly, "we don't really dislike each other."
"I'm the last of the family, you see; I'm the future.... Can't we skip
the preliminaries?" he broke out. "You don't feel that I am a stranger,
do you?" He halted on the verge of the confidence that he found no
barrier in her advanced age. He knew plenty of women of forty who had
never grown up much and who met him on perfectly equal terms.
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