"Yes," Paul replied, "he is very clever. It is a thousand pities that he cannot take it up; for, I will admit, he would make a better artist than secretary."
Hazel glowed with gratified pride. "Well," she said, "I must go. Hugh had better not see me. He would, of course, want to know why I had come."
Paul smothered a sigh. "But your feet," he objected. "Are your shoes properly dry?"
"Oh, I think dry enough," she returned. "They will be wet again by the time I am home."
"You will change then, of course?" Paul asked anxiously, and Hazel promised she would.
"By the way," Hazel remarked, "it was my birthday yesterday." They had both risen, and the girl turned her back upon him as she spoke, and stood looking pensively from the window.
"Of course," he answered. There was a pause.
"Why didn’t you come then? We—they quite missed you."
"I was not asked," Paul explained earnestly. "I thought you might have special plans for the day, and that I might be in the way."
Hazel waited, dissatisfied, for more; but no more, it seemed, was forthcoming.
"You did not even wish me many happy returns of the day," she commented, still turning from him.
"No," Paul admitted, with unwonted and seemingly unnecessary sternness.
"Well," she remarked, not knowing whether to be more hurt or surprised, "I—I think you might."
"You know I wish you everything the world has to give—all good and all blessings," Paul broke out, a marked fervour in his tone, and paused.
"Yes?" Hazel asked, a little breathless, with a sense of being somewhat overpowered.
"As to gifts," Paul went on desperately, "I would come with my arms full—I would lay all I had at——" He broke off, and with an effort seemed to pull himself together.
"You need not make such a lot of it," Hazel expostulated, in innocent surprise. "It is not a twenty-first, or anything so important as that. And even if it were, I should only expect, supposing you wished to give me anything at all, that is, I should only expect one present; just a small remembrance, you know, the—the usual thing."
"There is no usual——" He stopped short and endeavoured to recover himself. "Hazel," he said quietly, "you have not thought the omission due to carelessness, or doubted my—my friendship?"