picuously absent from them, just then.

Two or three maps lay overlapping each other upon the table beside the
tray with its flagon of amber ale, which had formed the captain's
morning draught; and the soiled glass, the fragments of his pipe, and
its half-burnt contents lay strewn about the prostrate chair which
that lively individual had upset in his agitation. Adrian's ladder,
the books he had been handling and had not replaced, the white ash of
the dying fire, all contributed to the unwonted aspect of somewhat
melancholy disorder; worse than all, the fumes of the strong tobacco
which the sailor liked to smoke in his secluded moments hung rank,
despite the open window, upon the absolute motionlessness of the
atmosphere.

Tanty snorted and sniffed, while Adrian, after picking up the chair,
began to almost unconsciously refold the maps, his eyes fixed
wonderingly upon his visitor's face.

This latter delivered herself at length of some of the indignation
that was choking her, in abrupt disjointed sentences, as if she were
uncorking so many bottles.

"Well I'm sure, nephew, I am not surprised at your _extraordinary_
behaviour, and if this is the style you prefer to live in--style, did
I say?--sty would be more appropriate. Of course it is only what I
have been led to expect, but I must say I was ill prepared to be
treated by you with actual disrespect. My sister's child and I your
guest, not to speak of your aunt, and you your mother's son, and her
host besides! It is a slap in the face, Adrian, a slap in the face
which has been a very bitter pill to have to swallow, I assure you--I
may say without exaggeration, in fact, that it has cut me to the
quick."

"But surely," cried the nephew, laughing with gentle indulgence at
this complicated indictment, "surely you cannot suppose I would have
been willingly guilty of the smallest disrespect to you. I am a most
unfortunate man, most unfortunately situated, and if I have offended,
it is, you must believe, unwittingly and unavoidably. But you got my
letter--I made my motives clear to you."

"Oh yes, I got your letter yesterday," responded Tanty, not at all
softened, "and a more idiotic production from a man of your
attainments, allow me to remark, I never read. Adrian, you are making
a perfect fool of yourself, and _you cannot afford it_!"

"I fear you will never really understand my position," murmured Adrian
hopelessly.

Tanty rattled her large green umbrella upon