He had the aspect and the manner of a merry boy. About him there was a complete absence of self-consciousness. He treated the girls in the spirit of comradeship, and Priscilla at least felt that he must have been possessed of a certain gift of intuition to perceive that this spirit and no other was the one that was appropriate to the occasion; and moreover that he must have had other gifts that enabled him to perceive that they were the very girls to appreciate such a form of unconventional courtesy. He was in no way breezy or free-and-easy in his manner. He made fun like a schoolboy, never forcing the note; and these young women knew that he was perfectly natural from the ease with which they remained natural and with no oppression of self-consciousness in his company, in spite of the fact that the situation was not merely unconventional, but within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, to indiscreetness, as indiscreetness would be defined by the district visitor or her relative, Mrs. Grundy. These young women, who found themselves taking lunch and drinking wine--actually hock of a brand that was habitually highly spoken of in the catalogues--at the invitation and in the house of a young man to whom they had never been presented, were beginning to feel as if they had been acquainted with him all their life, and they made an extremely good meal. The plovers’ eggs vanished when the spatchcock had been despatched, and the cream cheese and lettuce were still occupying them when Mrs. Pearce came from the kitchen to find out if all was well, and if she should serve the coffee in the library or in the drawing-room. “Oh, the drawing-room by all means,” cried Mr. Wingfield; and when she disappeared he whispered, “The good creature has just been to the drawing-room to take off the covers, I’m sure, and she would never forgive us if we didn’t go to see how careful she has been of everything. The only thing about it is that I couldn’t find my way from here to the drawing-room.” “You may depend on us,” said Rosa. “I may? Then I place myself unreservedly in your hands,” said he. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You shall show me through the house and tell me the story of all the rooms--who was killed in which, and where the celebrated duel was fought--you may, by the aid of a reasonable amount of imagination, still see the marks of the bullets in the wainscot.” “I never heard anything of that,” said Rosa. “A duel? When did it happen?” “What, do you mean to say that there’s no room in this house where the celebrated duel was fought?” cried he. “And you can assure me that there’s no picture of an old reprobate who went in the county by the name of Butcher Wingfield--or was it old Black Jack Wingfield--maybe Five-bottle Wingfield?” “I really can’t tell. All that I can say is that I never heard of any of them,” said Rosa.