He had tossed back his loose smoke-coloured hair with a nervous hand.

His dark beauty never showed to better advantage as he stood leaning back on the door.

"Pity you aren't her, isn't it ?" he repeated, smilingly.
She had no statuesque pose, but she had assumed a look of insensibility almost equal to that of stone.
"Come to think of it, even if you were her, you'd find it hard to say so now; so, either way, I reckon you'll have to do without the tin.

'Twould be real awkward to say to all your respectable friends that you'd been sailing under false colours; that 'White' isn't your _bona fide_ cognomen; that you'd deserted a helpless old woman to come away; and as to _how you left your home_--the sort of _carriage_ you took to, my dear, and how you got over the waggoner to do the work of a sexton--Oh, my, fine tale for Chellaston, that! No, my dear young lady, take a fatherly word of admonition; your best plan is to make yourself easy without the tin." He looked at her, even now, with more curiosity than malice in his smiling face.

A power of complete reserve was so foreign to his own nature that without absolute proof he could not entirely believe it in her.