“Do you mean to say you cannot find out?” screamed the lady.
“No, I don’t say so, Mrs. Dengelton. As soon as we arrive at Melnos, Justinian will tell me everything I and you desire to know.”
“Justinian!” echoed Mrs. Dengelton crossly, determined not to be satisfied. “Oh, dear Mr. Crispin, do not call my brother by that heathenish name!”
“It is an honorable name!” said the Rector good-naturedly. “You know it was Justinian, the Emperor of the East, who built St. Sophia, and was the author of the Pandects. My old friend Rudolph could scarcely have chosen a more suitable name for a lawgiver.”
“It is really wonderful to think of Rudolph still being alive,” mused Mrs. Dengelton, taking no notice of the Rector’s historical explanation. “It will be like meeting a stranger, for I was a child in long clothes when he left England.”
“Yes; fifty years does make a difference.”
“Fifty years!” shrieked Mrs. Dengelton, seeing he had made a mistake. “Oh, quite impossible, my dear Rector!—why, I am only forty-five, and as I was born when Rudolph left, it really cannot—it cannot”—
She was unable to utter that nauseous statement of fifty years, so the Rector good-humoredly came to her relief.
“Of course not—of course not, my dear lady. Time flies so quickly that we are apt to make mistakes. Your age, of course, is—is—?”
“Forty-five,” murmured the lady bashfully. “Ah, I am indeed growing old. But I will be glad to see Rudolph again, and my niece. You say she is beautiful, Mr. Crispin?”