"But who is he, then?" she persisted. "What is he? Where is his family? Where are his relatives?" "I don’t think he has any, if it comes to that, except his granddaughter," her nephew replied. "What does he do, then? How does he exist?" He was beginning to resent this cross-examination; but yet he said civilly enough— "I am not in the habit of making inquiries about the income of everyone I meet; but I understand they have some small sum of money between them—not much: and then he has published books; and he writes for the _Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle_. Is that enough?" "Where does he live?" "In Mayfair." "I don’t believe a word of it!" she said, and she even ventured to laugh in a half-embarrassed way. "I believe he dwells in a cave—he is a troglodyte—he comes out at dusk—and wanders about with a lantern and a pickaxe. Really, when I looked at his shaggy eyebrows, and his piercing eyes, and his venerable beard, I thought he must be some Druid come to life again—or perhaps one of those mythical island-doctors surviving from the fourteenth century—" "At all events, aunt," Vincent said, with an ominous distinctness of tone, "his age and what he has come through might procure for him a little respect. It isn’t like you to jeer and jibe simply because a man is old—" "My dear boy, I am not jibing and jeering!" she protested. "I tell you I am puzzled. There’s something about that old man I can’t make out." "How could you expect to understand anybody—in half-an-hour’s talk at Henley Regatta!" he said, indignantly. "I gave you the opportunity of getting to know them both, if only you had come along this evening, and spent some time with them. I am not aware that either of them wants to conceal anything. They are not ashamed of their poverty. Perhaps the old man talks too much: you, at least, pretended to find what he said interesting. And as for the girl, no doubt she was silent: she isn’t used to be stared at and examined by critical and unsympathetic eyes." The young widow elevated her brows: here was something unexpected! "Vin Harris," she said, solemnly, "are you quarrelling with me because—because I am not glamoured? Is it as bad as that? If so, then I am extremely glad I did not accept your invitation for this evening. I am compromised far enough already—" "What do you mean by compromised?" he demanded. But just at this moment she had to call to him to look out, for they had almost arrived at the _Villeggiatura_. He glanced over his shoulder, pulled a stroke with his right oar, shipped the other, and then, having gripped the stern of the house-boat, he affixed the painter of the gig, and, letting her back fall into the stream, returned to the thwart he had occupied. "I wish to ask you, aunt," said he, in a sufficiently stiff and formal tone, "how you consider you have been compromised through meeting any friends of mine."