'Oh, it doesn't!' he said, smiling disarmingly at her. 'Now I come to think of it, he had several sisters, hadn't he? I expect you must be the youngest of them. He was older than I was, and you are a mere child. By the by, when did he die?'
This question, put to her in a tone of casual interest, seemed to her to be so inapposite that the suspicion that he was drunk occurred to her. He showed none of the recognisable signs of inebriation, but she knew that her experience was limited. If he was not drunk, the only other explanation of his quite fantastic behaviour must be that he was slightly deranged. Unless he was trying, in some obscure fashion, to set her at a disadvantage? She found it impossible to understand what he hoped to gain by his extraordinary tactics, but the look of amusement on his face made her feel, uneasily, that he had an end in view: probably an unscrupulous end. Watching him closely, she said: 'My brother died twelve years ago. I am his youngest sister, but you are mistaken in thinking me a mere child. I daresay you wish I were!'
'No, I don't. Why should I?' he asked, mildly surprised.
'Because you might find it easier to flummery me!'
'But I don't want to flummery you!'
'Just as well!' she retorted. 'You wouldn't succeed! I am more than eight-and-twenty, Mr Calverleigh!'
'Well, that seems like a child to me. How much more?'
She was by now extremely angry, but for the second time
she was obliged to choke back an involuntary giggle. She said unsteadily: 'Talking to you is like – like talking to an eel!'
'No, is it? I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it a waste of time?'
She choked. 'Not such a waste of time as talking to you!'
'You're surely not going to tell me that eels find you more entertaining than I do?' he said incredulously.
That was rather too much for her: she did giggle, and was furious with herself for having done so.
'That's better!' he said approvingly.
She recovered herself. 'Let me ask you one question, sir! If I seem like a child to you, in what light do you regard a girl of seventeen?'
'Oh, as a member of the infantry!'
This careless reply made her gasp. Her eyes flashed; she demanded: 'How old do you think my niece is, pray?'
'Never having met your niece, I haven't a notion!'
'Never having – But – Good God, then you cannot be Mr Calverleigh! But when I asked you, you said you were!'
'Of course I did! Tell me, is there a nephew of mine at large in Bath?'
'Nephew? A – a Mr Stacy Calverleigh!'
'Yes, that's it. I'm his Uncle Miles.'
'Oh!' she uttered, staring at him in the liveliest astonishment. 'You can't mean that you are the one who – ' She broke off in some confusion, and added hurriedly: 'The one who went to India!'
He laughed. 'Yes, I'm the black sheep of the family!'
She blushed, but said: 'I wasn't going to say that!'
'Weren't you? Why not? You won't hurt my feelings!'
'I wouldn't be so uncivil! And if it comes to black sheep – !'
'Once you become entangled with Calverleighs, it's bound to,' he said. 'We came to England with the Conqueror, you know. It's my belief that our ancestor was one of the thatchgallows he brought with him. There were any number of 'em in his train.'
A delicious gurgle of laughter broke from her. 'Oh, no, were there? I didn't know – but I never heard anyone claim a thatchgallows for his ancestor!'
'No, I don't suppose you did. I never met any of us cameover-with-the-Conquest fellows who wouldn't hold to it, buckle and thong, that his ancestor was a Norman baron. Just as likely to have been one of the scaff and raff of Europe. I wish you will sit down!'