Again I shake my head.

“Never! and, what is more, I do not think I know what it is now:  I suppose I did not listen very attentively, but I do not think I caught it.”

“And your tone says” (with a very considerable accession of huffiness) “that you are supremely indifferent as to whether you ever catch it.”

I laugh.

“Catch it! you talk as if it were a disease.  Well” (speaking demurely), “perhaps on the whole it would be more convenient if I were to know it.”

Silence.

“Well! what is it?”

No answer.

“I shall have to ask at your lodge!”

“Who can pronounce his own name in cold blood?” he says, reddening a little.  “I, for one, cannot—­there—­if you do not mind looking at this card—­”

He takes one out of his pocket, and I stop—­we are slowly strolling back—­under a lamp, to read it: 

  MR. FRANCIS MUSGRAVE,
  MUSGRAVE ABBEY.

“Oh, thanks—­Musgrave—­yes.”

“And Sir Roger has never mentioned me to you—­really?” he says, recurring with persistent hurt vanity to the topic.  “How very odd of him!”

“Not in the least odd!” reply I, brusquely.  “Why should he?  He knew that I was not aware of your existence, and that therefore you would not be a very interesting subject to me; no doubt”—­(smiling a little)—­“I shall hear all about you from him now.”

He is silent.

“And do you live here at this abbey”—­(pointing to the card I still hold in my hand)—­“all by yourself?”

“Do you mean without a wife?” he asks, with a half-sneering smile.  “Yes—­I have that misfortune.”

“I was not thinking of a wife,” say I, rather angrily.  “It never occurred to me that you could have one! you are too young—­a great deal too young!”

“Too young, am I?  At what age, then, may one be supposed to deserve that blessing? forty? fifty? sixty?”

I feel rather offended, but cannot exactly grasp in my own mind the ground of offense.

“I meant, of course, had you any father? any mother?”

“Neither.  I am that most affecting spectacle—­an orphan-boy.”

“You have no brothers and sisters, I am sure,” say I, confidently.

“I have not, but why you should be sure of it, I am at a loss to imagine.”

“You seem to take offense rather easily,” I say, ingenuously.  “You looked quite cross when I said I did not think much of the flowers—­and again when I said I had forgotten your name—­and again when I told you, you were too young to have a wife:  now, you know, in a large family, one has all that sort of nonsense knocked out of one.”

“Has one?” (rather shortly).

“Nobody would mind whether one were huffy or not,” continue I; “they would only laugh at one.”

“What a pleasant, civil-spoken thing a large family must be!” he says, dryly.