Generally the countenance was that of an old man, the furrows were deep, the skin brown and shrivelled. But the alertness and force of the man’s whole expression showed that, if the body was beginning to fail, the mind was as fresh and masterful as ever. His hair, worn rather longer than usual, his loosely-fitting dress and slouching carriage gave him an un-English look. In general he impressed Robert as a sort of curious combination of the foreign _savant_ with the English grandee, for while his manner showed a considerable consciousness of birth and social importance, the gulf between him and the ordinary English country gentleman could hardly have been greater, whether in points of appearance or, as Robert very well knew, in points of social conduct. And as Robert watched him, his thoughts flew back again to the library, to this man’s past, to all that those eyes had seen and those hands had touched. He felt already a mysterious, almost a yearning, sense of acquaintance with the being who had just received him with such chilling, such unexpected indifference. The Squire’s manners; no doubt, were notorious, but even so, his reception of the new Rector of the parish, the son of a man intimately connected for years with the place, and with his father, and to whom he had himself shown what was for him considerable civility by letter and message, was sufficiently startling. Robert, however, had no time to speculate on the causes of it, for Mrs. Darcy, released from Mr. Wynnstay, threw herself with glee on to her longed-for prey, the young and interesting-looking Rector. First of all she cross-examined him as to his literary employments, and when by dint of much questioning she had forced particulars from him, Robert’s mouth twitched as he watched her scuttling away from the subject, seized evidently with internal terrors lest she should have precipitated herself beyond hope of rescue into the jaws of the sixth century. Then with a view to regaining the lead and opening another and more promising vein, she asked him his opinion of Lady Selden’s last novel, ‘Love in a Marsh;’ and when he confessed ignorance she paused a moment, fork in hand, her small wrinkled face looking almost as bewildered as when, three minutes before, her rashness had well-nigh brought her face to face with Gregory of Tours as a topic of conversation. But she was not daunted long. With little air and bridlings infinitely diverting, she exchanged inquiry for the most beguiling confidence. She could appreciate ‘clever men,’ she said, for she--she too--was literary. Did Mr. Elsmere know--this in a hurried whisper, with sidelong glances to see that Mr. Wynnstay was safely occupied with Rose, and the Squire with Lady Charlotte--that she had once _written a novel_? Robert, who had been posted up in many things concerning the neighborhood by Lady Helen Varley, could answer most truly that he had. Whereupon Mrs. Darcy beamed all over.