" she went on, "to give
you an opportunity of explaining yourself to this gentleman. I am afraid
he has mistaken your coldness of manner for intentional rudeness."

The colour rushed back into Regina's face--she vibrated for a moment
between anger and tears. But the better nature in her broke its way
through the constitutional shyness and restraint which habitually kept
it down. "I meant no harm, sir," she said, raising her large beautiful
eyes submissively to Rufus; "I am not used to receiving strangers. And
you did ask me some very strange questions," she added, with a sudden
burst of self-assertion. "Strangers are not in the habit of saying
such things in England." She looked at Mrs. Farnaby, listening with
impenetrable composure, and stopped in confusion. Her aunt would not
scruple to speak to the stranger about Amelius in her presence--there
was no knowing what she might not have to endure. She turned again to
Rufus. "Excuse me," she said, "if I leave you with my aunt--I have an
engagement." With that trivial apology, she made her escape from the
room.

"She has no engagement," Mrs. Farnaby briefly remarked as the door
closed. "Sit down, sir."

For once, even Rufus was not as his ease. "I can hit it off, ma'am, with
most people," he said. "I wonder what I've done to offend your niece?"

"My niece (with many good qualities) is a narrow-minded young woman,"
Mrs. Farnaby explained. "You are not like the men she is accustomed to
see. She doesn't understand you--you are not a commonplace gentleman.
For instance," Mrs. Farnaby continued, with the matter-of-fact gravity
of a woman innately inaccessible to a sense of humour, "you have got
something strange on your hair. It seems to be melting, and it
smells like soap. No: it's no use taking out your handkerchief--your
handkerchief won't mop it up. I'll get a towel." She opened an inner
door, which disclosed a little passage, and a bath-room beyond it. "I'm
the strongest person in the house," she resumed, returning with a towel
in her hand, as gravely as ever. "Sit still, and don't make apologies.
If any of us can rub you dry, I'm the woman." She set to work with the
towel, as if she had been Rufus's mother, making him presentable in the
days of his boyhood. Giddy under the violence of the rubbing, staggered
by the contrast between the cold reception accorded to him by the niece,
and the more than friendly welcome offered by the aunt, Rufus submitted
to circumstances in