This is a distinct ‘takedown.’ Wyndham, however, bears up nobly.
‘No,’ says he; ‘I am grateful to say that I resemble my father’s family, plain though they may be. The Burkes, of course, were always considered very handsome.’
‘Burke?’ She looks at him again, and frowns a little, as if again memory is troubling her. ‘The Burkes were——’
‘My mother was a daughter of Sir John Burke.’
‘Yes, yes; I see. And the lady who was here just now, Mrs.——’
‘Prior.’
‘She was a daughter, too?’
‘I regret to say so—yes.’
‘Well, my dreams are wrong,’ says she, as if half to herself. ‘And yet——’ She breaks off.
She moves away from him, and in an idle, inconsequent way, pulls at the shrubs and flowers near her. He can see at once that she is thinking, wrestling with the troubled waters of her mind, and there is something in the dignity and sadness of the young figure that appeals to him, and awakens afresh that eager desire to help her that has been his from the first.