Again Dyce stood up.  Mr. Gallantry, a tall, loose-limbed, thinly thatched gentleman, put on a pair of glasses to inspect him, and did so with an air of extreme interest, as though profoundly gratified by the meeting.  Seldom breaking silence himself, he lent the most flattering attention to anyone who spoke, his brows knitted in the resolve to grasp and assimilate whatever wisdom was uttered: 

“Did you walk out from Hollingford?” asked Lady Ogram, who again had her eyes fixed on the visitor.

“No, I drove, as I didn’t know the way.”

“You’d have done much better to walk.  Couldn’t you ask the way?  You look as if you didn’t take enough exercise.  Driving, one never sees anything.  When I’m in new places, I always walk.  Miss Bride and I are going to Wales this summer, and we shall walk a great deal.  Do you know Brecknock?  Few people do, but they tell me it’s very fine.  Perhaps you are one of the people who always go abroad?  I prefer my own country.  What did you think of the way from Hollingford?”

To this question she seemed to expect an answer, and Dyce, who was beginning to command himself, met her gaze steadily as he spoke.

“There’s very little to see till you come to Shawe.  It’s a pretty village—­or rather, it was, before someone built that hideous paper-mill.”

Scarcely had he uttered the words when he became aware of a change in Lady Ogram’s look.  The gleam of her eyes intensified; deeper wrinkles carved themselves on her forehead, and all at once two rows of perfect teeth shone between the pink edges of her shrivelled lips.

“Hideous paper-mill, eh?” she exclaimed, on a half-laughing note of peculiar harshness, “I suppose you don’t know that I built it?”

A shock went through Dyce’s blood.  He sat with his eyes fixed on Lady Ogram’s, powerless to stir or to avert his gaze.  Then the courage of despair suddenly possessed him.

“If I had known that,” he said, with much deliberation, “I should have kept the thought to myself.  But I’m afraid there’s no denying that the mill spoils the village.”

“The mill is the making of the village,” said Lady Ogram, emphatically.

“In one sense, very likely.  I spoke only of the picturesqueness of the place.”

“I know you did.  And what’s the good of picturesqueness to people who have to earn their living?  Is that your way of looking at things?  Would you like to keep villages pretty, and see the people go to the dogs?”

“Not at all.  I’m quite of the other way of thinking, Lady Ogram.  It was by mere accident that I made that unlucky remark.  If anyone with me had said such a thing, it’s more than likely I should have replied with your view of the matter.  You must remember that this district is quite strange to me.  Will you tell me something about it?  I am sure you had excellent reasons for building the mill; be so kind as to explain them to me.”