“You are so extreme,” she protested. “Of course you know something about him. What am I to tell people? They will be sure to ask.”
“Make them all happy,” Rochester suggested. “Tell Lady Blanche that he is a millionaire from New York, and Lois that he is the latest thing in Spring poets. They probably won’t compare notes until to-morrow, so it really doesn’t matter.”
“I wish you could be serious for five minutes,” Lady Mary said. “You really are a trial, Henry. You seem to see everything from some quaint point of view of your own, and to forget all the time that there are a few other people in the world whose eyesight is not so distorted. Sometimes I can’t help realizing how fortunate it is that we see so little of one another.”
“I can scarcely be expected to agree with you,” Rochester answered, with an ironical bow. “I must try and mend my ways, however. To return to the actual subject under discussion, then, I can really tell you very little about this young man.”
“You can tell me where he comes from, at any rate,” Lady Mary remarked.
Rochester shook his head.
“He comes from the land of mysteries,” he declared. “I really am ashamed to be so disappointing, but I only met him once before in my life.”
Lady Mary sighed gently.
“It is almost a relief,” she said, “to hear you admit that you have seen him before at all. Please tell me where it was that you met,” she added, studying the effect of a tiara upon her splendidly coiffured hair.
“I met him,” Rochester answered, “sitting with his back to a rock on the top of one of my hills.”