'Good heavens, Elgood!' the manager had exclaimed once, when Justina played a page, 'when will your daughter begin to have legs?'
The tall stranger's slow gaze had now descended upon Justina. To that bashful maiden, conscious of her gawkiness, the darkly bright eyes seemed awful as the front of Jove himself. She shrank behind her father, dazzled as if by a sunburst. There was such power in Maurice Clissold's face.
'We came here, anyhow, following the windings of yonder trout-stream,' said Clissold, with a backward glance at the valley. 'I haven't the faintest notion how we are to get back, except by turning our noses to the cathedral, and then following them religiously. We can hardly fail to get there, sooner or later, if we are true to our noses.'
Justina began to laugh, as if it had been a green-room jokelet, and then checked herself, blushing vehemently. She felt it was taking a liberty to be amused by this tall stranger.
'Perhaps time is no object to you, sir?' said Mr. Elgood.
'Not the slightest. I don't think time ever has been any object to me, except when I was gated at Oxford,' replied Clissold.
'To me, sir, it is vital. If I do not reach yon city before the clock strikes seven, the prospects of a struggling commonwealth are blighted.'
'Father,' remonstrated the girl, plucking his sleeve, 'what do these gentlemen know about commonwealths?'
'I have studied the subject but superficially in the pages of our friend Cicero,' said Clissold, lightly. 'Modern scholars call him Kikero, but your elder erudition might hardly accept the Kappa.'