Chapter IV

"I beg your pardon. It's disgraceful you should have been made to wait. The porter is an idiot. You wish, of course, to see the house--?"

The English words, on a key of spontaneous apology, with a very zealous inflection of concern--yet, at the same time, with a kind of entirely respectful and amiable abruptness, as of one hailing a familiar friend,--were pronounced in a breath by a brisk, cheerful, unmistakably English voice.

Lady Blanchemain, whose attention had still been on the incriminated page, looked quickly up, and (English voice and spontaneous apology notwithstanding) I won't vouch that the answer at the tip of her impulsive tongue mightn't have proved a hasty one--but the speaker's appearance gave her pause: the appearance of the tall, smiling, unmistakably English young man, by whom Shoulder-knots had returned accompanied, and who now, having pushed the grille ajar and issued forth, stood, placing himself with a tentative obeisance at her service, beside the carriage: he was so clearly, first of all--what, if it hadn't been for her preoccupation, his voice, tone, accent would have warned her to expect--so visibly a gentleman; and then, with the even pink of his complexion, his yellowish hair and beard, his alert, friendly, very blue blue eyes--with his very blue blue flannels too, and his brick-red knitted tie--he was so vivid and so unusual.

His appearance gave her a pause; and in the result she in her turn almost apologized.

"This wretched book," she explained, pathetically bringing forward her _pièce justificative_, "said that it was open to the public."

The vivid young man hastened to put her in the right.

"It is--it _is_," he eagerly affirmed. "Only," he added, with a vaguely rueful modulation, and always with that amiable abruptness, as a man very much at his ease, while his blue eyes whimsically brightened, "only the blessed public never comes--we're so off the beaten path. And I suppose one mustn't expect a Scioccone"--his voice swelled on the word, and he cast sidelong a scathing glance at his summoner--"to cope with unprecedented situations. Will you allow me to help you out?"

"Ah," thought Lady Blanchemain, "Eton," his tone and accent now nicely appraised by an experienced ear. "Eton--yes; and probably--h'm? Probably Balliol," her experience led her further to surmise. But what--with her insatiable curiosity about people, she had of course immediately begun to wonder--what was an Eton and Balliol man doing, apparently in a position of authority, at this remote Italian castle?