appear in Ethelberta's tones was expressed by her gaze. Christopher was
not in a mood to draw fine distinctions between recognized and
unrecognized organs of speech. He replied to the eyes.

'I own that your surprise is natural,' he said, with an anxious look into
her face, as if he wished to get beyond this interpolated scene to
something more congenial and understood. 'But my concern at such a
history of yourself since I last saw you is even more natural than your
surprise at my manner of breaking in.'

'That history would justify any conduct in one who hears it--'

'Yes, indeed.'

'If it were true,' added Ethelberta, smiling. 'But it is as false as--'
She could name nothing notoriously false without raising an image of what
was disagreeable, and she continued in a better manner: 'The story I was
telling is entirely a fiction, which I am getting up for a particular
purpose--very different from what appears at present.'

'I am sorry there was such a misunderstanding,' Christopher stammered,
looking upon the ground uncertain and ashamed. 'Yet I am not, either,
for I am very glad you have not undergone such trials, of course. But
the fact is, I--being in the neighbourhood--I ventured to call on a
matter of business, relating to a poem which I had the pleasure of
setting to music at the beginning of the year.'

Ethelberta was only a little less ill at ease than Christopher showed
himself to be by this way of talking.