Lisle having some outdoor business to attend to left the others at the door of the library and went his way. Mrs. Clare’s stately beauty had not failed to impress him. He had found her somewhat reserved, and, while listening with apparent interest to all he had to say, originating few remarks of her own. He had, however, judged this reticence to be natural to her and not merely put on as a cloak for the occasion; and, in so thinking, he was not very wide of the mark, for at no time had Giovanna been a talkative woman, and now that she found herself in a sphere so new and strange it seemed to her that, for the present at all events, her wisest course was to listen to everyone and say as little as possible in return, and by so doing afford others no opportunity of gauging the depths of her ignorance. Lisle found himself somewhat at sea when it came to a question of summing up Luigi. Sir Gilbert had furnished him with no information as to how and where the young man had been brought up, and, in lack of some such data, he felt as if he were floundering in the dark. Lewis Clare spoke English with the ease and fluency of one to the manner born, even to the point, judging from certain of his remarks, of being an adept in slang. That he was not a gentleman in himself was certain, and it was equally certain that he lacked the indefinable _cachet_ of one who has been in the habit of mixing in good society. Yet it would be perhaps scarcely correct to call, him vulgar, using the term in its commoner acceptation. “None the less, he’s a conceited, ignorant young puppy,” concluded Lisle, “and the chances are that, with a free hand given him, he will develop by-and-by into something still more objectionable. Where has he sprung from, I wonder? and for what reason, has he been kept in the background all these years? Can it have been that Sir Gilbert himself had no knowledge till lately of the existence of such a descendant?” But these were vain questions, as Everard Lisle was well aware.