Tom Verity, though possessed of plentiful cheekiness towards the majority of his elders and betters, was no fire-eater.  He preferred diplomacy to war; and would adroitly evade rather than invite anything approaching a scene, specially in the presence of a woman.  Yet under existing circumstances retreat had become, as he perceived, not only undignified but useless.  So in his best Oxford manner—­a manner ornate, at that period, and quite crushingly superior—­he raised his shoulders, smiled faintly, resignedly, and disposed himself in an easier attitude, saying: 

“Better wait, perhaps, my dear Damaris.  I would sooner risk losing those precious letters than acquire a possible escort for you—­and for myself—­down to the river and across the ferry.”

And he threw a meaning glance over his shoulder, indicating the obtrusive stranger.

So doing he received a disturbing impression.  For seen thus, at close quarters, not only was the said stranger notably, even astonishingly good-looking, but he bore an arresting likeness in build, in carriage, in expression to—­

Tom paused perplexed, racking his brains.—­For who, the deuce, was it?  Where had he seen, and that as he could have sworn quite recently, this same forceful countenance lit by russet-grey eyes at once dauntless and sad, deep-set, well apart, the lids of them smooth and delicately moulded?  The man’s skin was tanned, by exposure, to a tint but a few shades lighter than that of his gold-brown beard—­a beard scrupulously groomed, trimmed to a nicety and by no means deforming the lower part of the face since the line of jaw and chin remained clearly discernible.

Tom turned away and looked absently at The Hard in its broad reposeful frame of lawn and trees.  The cool green foliage of a bank of hydrangeas—­running from the great ilexes to the corner of the house—­thick-set with discs of misty pink and blue blossom took his fancy, as contrast to the beds of scarlet and crimson geranium naming in the sun.  But below any superficial sense of pleasure in outward things, thought of that likeness—­and likeness, dash it all, to whom?—­still vexed him as a riddle he failed to guess.  Obligation to guess it, to find the right answer, obsessed him as of vital interest and importance, though, for the life of him, he could not tell why.  His sense of proportion, his social sense, his self-complacency, grew restive under the pressure of it.  He told himself it wasn’t of the smallest consequence, didn’t matter a fig, yet continued to cudgel his memory.  And, all the while, the sound of deliberate footsteps crunching over the dry rattling shingle, nearer and nearer, contributed to increase his inward perturbation.

The footsteps halted close behind him—­while for a sensible length of time a shadow lay across him shutting off the genial warmth—­and started again, passing to the left, as the intruder traversed the crown of the ridge a few paces from where Damaris was seated, and pursued his way down to the river-shore on the other side.