She eyed him almost defiantly.
But Milbanke stood stammering and confused, his gaze fixed nervously on the ground, an unaccustomed flush on his worn cheeks.
"But—but, Hannah, I—I am an old man!"
His tone was deprecating and meant to be ironic; but unconsciously it had an undernote of question; unconsciously, as he raised his eyes to his mentor's face, he straightened the shoulders that age and study had combined to bend.
"I am an old man!" he said again. "Why—why, I am five years older than her father——"
Hannah continued to search his face.
"An' sure what harm is that?" she said. "Wasn't me own poor man as ould as me grandfather?—an' no woman ever buried a finer husband—God rest him!"
Milbanke's lack of humorous imagination stood him in good stead.
"But she's a child," he stammered—"a child——"
For answer, Hannah leant out of the window until her face was close to his.