She was not exactly the kind of young lady one would immediately class mentally as "a foreigner," but the blue of her eyes was so deep, and her hair and eyelashes so dark, that these things, combining themselves with a certain "way" she had, made him feel her to be of a type unfamiliar to the region, at least.
He was struck, also, by the fact that the young lady had no maid with her.

The truth was that Bettina had purposely left her maid in town.

If awkward things occurred, the presence of an attendant would be a sort of complication.

It was better, on the first approach, to be wholly unencumbered.
"How far are we from Stornham Court ?" she inquired.
"Five miles, my lady," he answered, touching his cap.

She expressed something which to the rural and ingenuous, whose standards were defined, demanded a recognition of probable rank.
"I'd like to know," was his comment to his wife when he went home to dinner, "who has gone to Stornham Court to-day.