“How dare—” he began; but he checked himself by an effort, and the colour faded slowly from his face.
“Bone,” he said, sadly, “you are angry, and in no fit state, mental and bodily, to talk about these matters. I will forget what you have just said. Now, back to your school; but before you go, let me tell you that I am not the enemy you seem to think. I have here,” he said, drawing a blue envelope from his breast, “a list of contributions, which I am getting towards a testimonial to our old schoolmaster for his long services. I hope to make it reach a handsome sum.”
Humphrey Bone’s lips were parted to speak, but these words disarmed him, and, muttering and shaking his head, he turned and left the place.
“Poor fellow!” said the Rector, calmly. “I fear that at times he hardly knows what he says.”
Sage Portlock looked at him wonderingly for a few moments, and he stood gazing at her, his countenance growing less troubled the while; and no wonder, for Sage Portlock’s was a pleasant face. She was not handsome, but, at the same time, she was far from plain; and there was something attractive about her broad forehead, with its luxuriant, smoothly-braided hair crossing each temple—for young ladies in those days had not taken to either cutting their hair short, or to wearing fringes or hirsute hysterics on their fronts. There was a pleasant regularity in her by no means classical features; her eyes were large and winning, and her well-cut mouth, if too large according to an artists ideal, curved pleasantly, and displayed on parting the whitest of teeth.
“Well, Miss Portlock,” said the Rector, smiling, “what a bad mistress you must be!”
“Indeed, sir,” she exclaimed, colouring, “I try very hard to—”
“Of course—of course,” he said, laughing, as he walked up the schoolroom by her side. “My dear child, it is the old story.”
“But was Mrs Marley so good a mistress, sir?” asked Sage, eagerly.
“My dear Miss Portlock, she was one of the most amiable of old women; but it was quite shocking to see the state of the school. ‘Steeped in ignorance’ is about the best description I can give you of its condition. Such encounters as you have had this morning fall of necessity to the lot you have embraced, and, as you see, one of my cloth is not exempt from such troubles.”