As to any other way of escape, that was impossible, for he was fairly cornered between the enemy and the wall, and unless he were to cut his way through the one or the other, he must sit where he was.
"I hope you don't mind talking to me, Mr Reggie," continued the young lady, when Reginald gave no symptom of having heard the last observation.

"We shall have to be friends, you know, now we are neighbours.

So you haven't got an album ?" This abrupt question drove poor Reginald still further into the corner.
What business was it of hers whether he had got an album or not?
What right had she to pester him with questions like that in his own house?
In fact, what right had she and her mother and her brother to come there at all?
Those were the thoughts that passed through his mind, and as they did so indignation got the better of good manners and everything else.
"Find out," he said.
He could have bitten his tongue off the moment he had spoken.

For Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing.
"I beg your pardon," he gasped hurriedly.

"I--I didn't mean to be rude." Now was the hour of Miss Jemima's triumph.