He had known Miss Abbott for years, and had never had much opinion about her one way or the other.  She was good, quiet, dull, and amiable, and young only because she was twenty-three:  there was nothing in her appearance or manner to suggest the fire of youth.  All her life had been spent at Sawston with a dull and amiable father, and her pleasant, pallid face, bent on some respectable charity, was a familiar object of the Sawston streets.  Why she had ever wished to leave them was surprising; but as she truly said, “I am John Bull to the backbone, yet I do want to see Italy, just once.  Everybody says it is marvellous, and that one gets no idea of it from books at all.”  The curate suggested that a year was a long time; and Miss Abbott, with decorous playfulness, answered him, “Oh, but you must let me have my fling!  I promise to have it once, and once only.  It will give me things to think about and talk about for the rest of my life.”  The curate had consented; so had Mr. Abbott.  And here she was in a legno, solitary, dusty, frightened, with as much to answer and to answer for as the most dashing adventuress could desire.

They shook hands without speaking.  She made room for Philip and his luggage amidst the loud indignation of the unsuccessful driver, whom it required the combined eloquence of the station-master and the station beggar to confute.  The silence was prolonged until they started.  For three days he had been considering what he should do, and still more what he should say.  He had invented a dozen imaginary conversations, in all of which his logic and eloquence procured him certain victory.  But how to begin?  He was in the enemy’s country, and everything—­the hot sun, the cold air behind the heat, the endless rows of olive-trees, regular yet mysterious—­seemed hostile to the placid atmosphere of Sawston in which his thoughts took birth.  At the outset he made one great concession.  If the match was really suitable, and Lilia were bent on it, he would give in, and trust to his influence with his mother to set things right.  He would not have made the concession in England; but here in Italy, Lilia, however wilful and silly, was at all events growing to be a human being.

“Are we to talk it over now?” he asked.

“Certainly, please,” said Miss Abbott, in great agitation.  “If you will be so very kind.”

“Then how long has she been engaged?”

Her face was that of a perfect fool—­a fool in terror.

“A short time—­quite a short time,” she stammered, as if the shortness of the time would reassure him.

“I should like to know how long, if you can remember.”

She entered into elaborate calculations on her fingers.  “Exactly eleven days,” she said at last.

“How long have you been here?”

More calculations, while he tapped irritably with his foot.  “Close on three weeks.”

“Did you know him before you came?”