lor rush up in her face, and once could have sworn he saw tears in
her eyes. If the temper of this talk were trying to him, hardened at a
hundred dinner-tables, what must it be to a young and ardent creature!
And he was relieved to find, on getting to the drawing-room, that she
had slipped behind the piano and was chatting quietly with her Uncle
John....

As to whether this or that man liked her, Nedda perhaps was not more
ignorant than other women; and she had noted a certain warmth and
twinkle in Uncle John's eyes the other evening, a certain rather jolly
tendency to look at her when he should have been looking at the
person to whom he was talking; so that she felt toward him a trustful
kindliness not altogether unmingled with a sense that he was in that
Office which controls the destinies of those who 'get into trouble.' The
motives even of statesmen, they say, are mixed; how much more so, then,
of girls in love! Tucked away behind a Steinway, which instinct told
her was not for use, she looked up under her lashes at her uncle's still
military figure and said softly:

"It was awfully good of you to come, too, Uncle John."

And John, gazing down at that round, dark head, and those slim, pretty,
white shoulders, answered:

"Not at all--very glad to get a breath of fresh air."

And he stealthily tightened his white waistcoat--a rite neglected of
late; the garment seemed to him at the moment unnecessarily loose.

"You have so much experience, Uncle. Do you think violent rebellion is
ever justifiable?"

"I do not."

Nedda sighed. "I'm glad you think that," she murmured, "because I
don't think it is, either. I do so want you to like Derek, Uncle John,
because--it's a secret from nearly every one--he and I are engaged."

John jerked his head up a little, as though he had received a slight
blow. The news was not palatable. He kept his form, however, and
answered:

"Oh! Really! Ah!"

Nedda said still more softly: "Please don't judge him by the other
night; he wasn't very nice then, I know."

John cleared his throat.

Instinct warned her that he agreed, and she said rather sadly:

"You see, we're both awfully young. It must be splendid to have
experience."

Over John's face, with its double line between the brows, its double
line in the thin cheeks, its single firm line of mouth beneath a gray
moustache, there passed a little grimace.

"As to being young," he said, "that'll change for the--er--better only