What can bring him here?"

You or I, indeed, or Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, in the fulness of our
knowledge, might very likely have interpreted it rather as a glance of
nervous apprehension. Anyhow, it was a glance that perfectly checked the
impetus of his intent. Something snapped and gave way within him; and
he needed no further signal that the occasion for passionate avowals was
not the present.

And thereupon befell a scene that was really quite too absurd, that was
really childish, a scene over the memory of which, I must believe, they
themselves have sometimes laughed together; though, at the moment, its
absurdity held, for him at least, elements of the tragic.

He met her in the broad gravelled carriage-sweep, before the great
hall-door. She had on her hat and gloves, as if she were just going out.
It seemed to him that she was a little pale; her eyes seemed darker than
usual, and graver. Certainly--cold surprise, or nervous apprehension, as
you will--her attitude was by no means cordial. It was not oncoming. It
showed none of her accustomed easy, half-humorous, wholly good-humoured
friendliness. It was decidedly the attitude of a person standing off,
shut in, withheld.

"I have never seen her in the least like this before," he thought, as
he looked at her pale face, her dark, grave eyes; "I have never seen her
more beautiful. And there is not one single atom of hope for me."

"How do you do?" she said, unsmiling and waited, as who should invite
him to state his errand. She did not offer him her hand but, for that
matter, (she might have pleaded), she could not, very well: for one of
her hands held her sunshade, and the other held an embroidered silk bag,
woman's makeshift for a pocket.

And then, capping the first pang of his disappointment, a kind of
anger seized him. After all, what right had she to receive him in this
fashion?--as if he were an intrusive stranger. In common civility, in
common justice, she owed it to him to suppose that he would not be there
without abundant reason.

And now, with Peter angry, the absurd little scene began.

Assuming an attitude designed to be, in its own way, as reticent as
hers, "I was passing your gate," he explained, "when I happened to find
this, lying by the roadside. I took the liberty of bringing it to you."

He gave her the Cardinal's snuff box, which, in spite of her hands'
preoccupation, she was able to accept.

"A liberty!" he thought, grinding his teeth.