Miss Gascoigne took no notice, but continued addressing Dr. Grey: 

“I ask you, as a gentleman, when other gentlemen come to this house to pay their respects to me—­that is, to the ladies generally, ought Mrs. Grey to take the earliest opportunity of escaping from the drawing-room, nor return to it the whole time the visitors stay?  No doubt she is unused to society, feels a little awkward in it, but still—­”

“I understand now,” interrupted Christian.  “Yes, I did this afternoon exactly as she says.  I am fully aware of the fact.”

“And, pray, who was the gentleman to whom you were so very rude?” asked Dr. Grey, smiling.

Christian replied without any hesitation—­and oh! how thankful that she was able to do so—­ “It was Sir Edwin Uniacke.”

But she was not prepared for the start and flash of sudden anger with which her husband heard the name.

“What! has he called at my house?  That is more effrontery than I gave him credit for.”

“Effrontery!” repeated Miss Gascoigne, indignantly.  “It is no effrontery in a gentleman of his rank and fortune, a visitor at Avonsbridge, to pay a call at Saint Bede’s Lodge.  Besides, I gave him permission to do so.  He was exceedingly civil to me last night, and I must say he is one of the pleasantest young men I have met for a long time.  What do you know against him?”

“What do I know?” echoed the master, and stopped.  Then added, “Of course you might not have heard; the dean and I keep these things private as much as we can; but he was ‘rusticated’ a year and a half ago.”

Miss Gascoigne might have known this fact or not; anyhow, she was determined not to yield her point.

“Well, and if he were, doubtless it was for some youthful folly—­debt, or the like.  Now he has came into his property, he will sow his wild oats and become perfectly respectable.”

“I hope so—­I sincerely hope so,” said Dr. Grey, not without a trace of agitation in his manner deeper than the occasion seemed to warrant.  “But, in the meantime, he is not the sort of person whom I should wish the ladies of my family to have among their visiting acquaintance.”

The argument had now waxed so warm that both parties forgot, or appeared to forget Christian, who sat silent, listening to it all—­listening with a kind of wondering eagerness as to what her husband would say—­ her husband, a man in every way the very opposite of this man—­Sir Edwin Uniacke.  How would he feel about him? how judge him?  Or how much had he known him to judge him by?

On this last head Dr. Grey was impenetrable, he parried, Or gave vague general replies to all Miss Gascoigne’s questions.  She gained nothing except the firm, decided answer, “I will not have Sir Edwin Uniacke visiting at the Lodge.”

“But why not?” insisted Miss Gascoigne, roused by opposition into greater obstinacy.  “Did we not meet him at the vice chancellor’s?  And he told me of two or three houses where we should be sure to meet him again next week.”