Regina resented this last inquiry as an outrage on propriety. “What next will he say?” she thought to herself. “I must put this presuming man in his proper place.” She darted another annihilating look at him, as she spoke in her turn. “May I ask, Mr.—Mr.——?”
“Dingwell,” said Rufus, prompting her.
“May I ask, Mr. Dingwell, if you have favoured me by calling here at the request of Mr. Goldenheart?”
Genial and simple-minded as he was, eagerly as he desired to appreciate at her full value the young lady who was one day to be the wife of Amelius, Rufus felt the tone in which those words were spoken. It was not easy to stimulate his modest sense of what was fairly due to him into asserting itself, but the cold distrust, the deliberate distance of Regina’s manner, exhausted the long-suffering indulgence of this singularly patient man. “The Lord, in his mercy, preserve Amelius from marrying You,” he thought, as he rose from his chair, and advanced with a certain simple dignity to take leave of her.
“It did not occur to me, miss, to pay my respects to you, till Amelius and I had parted company,” he said. “Please to excuse me. I should have been welcome, in my country, with no better introduction than being (as I may say) his friend and well-wisher. If I have made a mistake—”
He stopped. Regina had suddenly changed colour. Instead of looking at him, she was looking over his shoulder, apparently at something behind him. He turned to see what it was. A lady, short and stout, with strange wild sorrowful eyes, had noiselessly entered the room while he was speaking: she was waiting, as it seemed, until he had finished what he had to say. When they confronted each other, she moved to meet him, with a firm heavy step, and with her hand held out in token of welcome.
“You may feel equally sure, sir, of a friendly reception here,” she said, in her steady self-possessed way. “I am this young lady’s aunt; and I am glad to see the friend of Amelius in my house.” Before Rufus could answer, she turned to Regina. “I waited,” she went on, “to give you an opportunity of explaining yourself to this gentleman. I am afraid he has mistaken your coldness of manner for intentional rudeness.”
The colour rushed back into Regina’s face—she vibrated for a moment between anger and tears. But the better nature in her broke its way through the constitutional shyness and restraint which habitually kept it down. “I meant no harm, sir,” she said, raising her large beautiful eyes submissively to Rufus; “I am not used to receiving strangers. And you did ask me some very strange questions,” she added, with a sudden burst of self-assertion. “Strangers are not in the habit of saying such things in England.” She looked at Mrs. Farnaby, listening with impenetrable composure, and stopped in confusion. Her aunt would not scruple to speak to the stranger about Amelius in her presence—there was no knowing what she might not have to endure. She turned again to Rufus. “Excuse me,” she said, “if I leave you with my aunt—I have an engagement.” With that trivial apology, she made her escape from the room.
“She has no engagement,” Mrs. Farnaby briefly remarked as the door closed. “Sit down, sir.”
For once, even Rufus was not as his ease. “I can hit it off, ma’am, with most people,” he said. “I wonder what I’ve done to offend your niece?”