"If you loved a man, and knew that he loved you, and he wouldn't ask you
to marry him, what would you do?"
The Admiral surveyed his grand-niece thoughtfully. "What do you expect
to do, my dear?"
Petronella stopped on the snowy top step and looked down at him. "Who
said I had anything to do with it?" she demanded.
The Admiral's old eyes twinkled. "Let me come in, and tell me about
it."
Petronella smiled at him over her big muff. "If you'll promise not to
stay after five, I'll give you a cup of tea."
"Who's coming at five?"
The color flamed into Petronella's cheeks. In her white coat and white
furs, with her wind-blown brown hair, her beauty satisfied even the
Admiral's critical survey, and he hastened to follow his question by the
assertion, "Of course I'll come in."
Petronella, with her coat off, showed a slenderness which was enhanced
by the straight lines of her white wool gown, with the long sleeves
fur-edged, and with fur at the top of the high, transparent collar. She
wore her hair curled over her ears and low on her forehead, which made
of her face a small and delicate oval. In the big hall, with a roaring
fire in the wide fireplace, she dispensed comforting hospitality to the
adoring Admiral. And when she had given him his tea she sat on a stool
at his feet. "Oh, wise great-uncle," she said, "I am going to tell you
about the Man!"
"Have I ever seen him?"
"No. I met him in London last year, and--well, you know what a trip home
on shipboard means, with all the women shut up in their cabins, and with
moonlight nights, and nobody on deck--"
"So it was an affair of moonlight and propinquity?"
After a pause: "No, it was an affair of the only man in the world for
me."
"My dear child--!"
Out of a long silence she went on: "He thought I was poor. You know how
quietly I traveled with Miss Danvers. And he didn't associate Nell
Hewlett with Petronella Hewlett of New York and Great Rock. And
so--well, you know, uncle, he let himself go, and I let myself go, and
then--"
She drew a long breath. "When we landed, things stopped. He had found
out who I was, and he wrote me a little note, and said he would never
forget our friendship--and that's--all."
She finished drearily, and the bluff old Admiral cleared his throat.
There was something wrong with the scheme of things when his Petronella
couldn't have the moon if she wanted it!
"And what can I do--what can any woman do?" Petronella demanded, turning
on him. "I can't go to him and say, 'Please marry me.' I can't even
think it"; her cheeks burned. "And he'd die before _he'd_ say another
word, and I suppose that now we'll go on growing old, and I'll get
thinner and thinner, and he'll get fatter and fatter, and I'll be an old
maid, and he'll marry some woman who's poor enough to satisfy his pride,
and--well, that will be the end of it, uncle."
"The end of it?" said the gentleman who had once commanded a squadron.
"Well, I guess not, Petronella, if you want him. Oh, the man's a fool!"
"He's not a fool, uncle." The sparks in Petronella's eyes matched the
sparks in the Admiral's.
"Well, if he's worthy of you--"
Petronella laid her cheek against his hand. "The question is not," she
said, faintly, "of his worthiness, but of mine, dear uncle."
Dumbly the Admiral gazed down at that drooping head. Could this be
Petronella--confident, imperious, the daughter of a confident and
imperious race?