I came the other day from Athens." He managed
not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the
girl he came down to nature. "Do you wish me to leave you, or will you
let me stay a little?"

She took it all humanely. "I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton;
I'm very glad to see you."

"Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?"

The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a
resting-place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for
a highly-developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class
seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he
had asked her several questions, taken rather at random and to which, as
he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching
the answer; had given her too some information about himself which was
not wasted upon her calmer feminine sense. He repeated more than once
that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the
encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation
advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things
to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being
impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had
been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting,
heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands
is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with
his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its
seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air
of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of
the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those
who have a kindness for it. Isabel noted these things and was glad she
had always liked him. He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every
one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great
decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures
and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by
some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order;
her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her
winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the
summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own
adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At
l