“Will you please to enlighten my ignorance on one point, Mr. Beecher?” said she, as they sat over their coffee. “Is it customary in this rigid England, of which you have told me so many things, for a young unmarried lady to travel alone with a gentleman who is not even a relative?”
“When her father so orders it, I don't see that there can be much wrong in it,” said he, with some hesitation.
“That is not exactly an answer to my question; although I may gather from it that the proceeding is, at least, unusual.”
“I won't say it's quite customary,” said Beecher; “but taking into account that I am a very old and intimate friend of your father's—”
“There must, then, have been some very pressing emergency to make papa adopt such a course,” interrupted she.
“Why so?” asked he. “Is the arrangement so very distasteful to you?”
“Perhaps not; perhaps I like it very well. Perhaps I find you very agreeable, very amusing, very—What shall I say?”
“Respectful.”
“If you like that epithet, I have no objection to put it in your character. Yet still do I come back to the thought that papa could scarcely have struck out this plan without some grave necessity. Now, I should like much to know what that is, or was.” Beecher made no sign of reply, and she quickly asked, “Do you know his reasons?”
“Yes,” said he, gravely; “but I prefer that you should not question me about them.”