‘A Miss Masterson.’

‘No’ she snapped, her face more and more forbidding.  ’We have no Misses here, and no baggages for fine gentlemen!  You have come to the wrong house!’ And she tried to shut the door in his face.

He was puzzled and a little affronted; but he set his foot between the door and the post, and balked her.  ‘One moment, my good woman,’ he said.  ‘This is Mr. Fishwick’s, is it not?’

’Ay, ‘tis,’ she answered, breathing hard with indignation.  ’But if it is him your honour wants to see, you must come when he is at home.  He is not at home to-day.’

‘I don’t want to see him,’ Sir George said.  ’I want to speak to the young lady who is staying here.’

‘And I tell you that there is no young lady staying here!’ she retorted wrathfully.  ’There is no soul in the house but me and my serving girl, and she’s at the wash-tub.  It is more like the Three Tuns you want!  There’s a flaunting gipsy-girl there if you like—­but the less said about her the better.’

Sir George stood and stared at the woman.  At last, on a sudden suspicion, ‘Is your servant from Oxford?’ he said.

She seemed to consider him before she answered.  ‘Well, if she is?’ she said grudgingly.  ‘What then?’

‘Is her name Masterson?’

Again she seemed to hesitate.  At last, ‘May be and may be not!’ she snapped, with a sniff of contempt.

He saw that it was, and for an instant the hesitation was on his side.  Then, ‘Let me come in!’ he said abruptly.  ’You are doing your son’s client little good by this!’ And when she had slowly and grudgingly made way for him to enter, and the door was shut behind him, ‘Where is she?’ he asked almost savagely.  ‘Take me to her!’

The old dame muttered something unintelligible.  Then, ’She’s in the back part,’ she said, ’but she’ll not wish to see you.  Don’t blame me if she pins a clout to your skirts.’

Yet she moved aside, and the way lay open—­down the brick passage.  It must be confessed that for an instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him.  Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero.  It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial.  Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe.  Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on.  Three steps carried him down the passage.  Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow.  The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent—­and Julia.