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with a stout gold-mounted Malacca cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for his knees were feeling the effects of their long stay in the same position. He had assumed his fur coat, to guard against the draughts of the unfinished house. The staircase--he said--was handsome! the baronial style! They would want some statuary about! He came to a standstill between the columns of the doorway into the inner court, and held out his cane inquiringly. What was this to be--this vestibule, or whatever they called it? But gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him. "Ah! the billiard-room!" When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre, he turned to Irene: "Waste this on plants? You take my advice and have a billiard table here!" Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun's coif across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below this seemed to Swithin more charming than ever. He nodded. She would take his advice he saw. He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he described as "spacious"; but fell into such raptures as he permitted to a man of his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which he descended by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light. "You'll have room here," he said, "for six or seven hundred dozen--a very pooty little cellar!" Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from the copse below, Swithin came to a stop. "There's a fine view from here," he remarked; "you haven't such a thing as a chair?" A chair was brought him from Bosinney's tent. "You go down," he said blandly; "you two! I'll sit here and look at the view." He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with one hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other planted on his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing with its flat top the pale square of his face; his stare, very blank, fixed on the landscape. He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields. He was, indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of reflection. The air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the prospect a fine one, a remarka.... His head fell a little to one side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd! He--ah! They were waving to him from the bottom! He put up his hand, and moved it more than once. They were active--the prospect was remar.... His head fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it fell to the right. It r
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