II.
AFTER dinner, Miss Cullen, strolling about the great glasshouse, all alone, came upon Sir Tristram, also all alone. Although not, probably, more than half an inch taller than the gentleman, she looked, yes, down at him, as if, comparatively, he were but an insect at her feet.
"Well, Sir Tristram, what amends do you propose to make to me?"
"Miss Cullen?"
"Sir?"
She looked at him; and this famous lawyer who had been more than a match for the olla podrida of the law courts, and the champions of the political ring, quailed before a young girl's eyes.
"I fear, Miss Cullen, that I fail to apprehend your meaning."
"Is it possible that you are an habitual desecrator of that law which you have sworn to uphold, and that, therefore, the details of your crimes are apt to escape your memory? More than three months have elapsed since you committed your crime. So far as I know, you have not sought as yet to take advantage of any occasion to offer me atonement."
Sir Tristram faced round to her with something of the bull-dog look which had come upon his face when he had found himself in front of Mr. Stanham.
"May I inquire, Miss Cullen, why you go out of your way to use language of such extravagant exaggeration? It would be gross absurdity, amounting almost to prostitution of language, to call the offence of which I was guilty, if it was an offence, a crime."