there is no one I would more readily see in that house than yourself,"
he said.

"But----" she protested. "And besides, you don't know me!"

"One knows some things at once, and I am as sure you
would--understand--as if I had known you twenty years. It may seem
absurd to you, but when I looked up just now and saw you for the first
time, I thought--this, this is the tenant. This is her house.... Not a
doubt. That is why I did not go for my walk--came round with you."

"You really think you would like us to have that house?" she said.
"_Still?_"

"No one better," said Mr. Brumley.

"After the board?"

"After a hundred boards, I let the house to you...."

"My husband of course will be the tenant," reflected Lady Harman.

She seemed to brighten again by an effort: "I have always wanted
something like this, that wasn't gorgeous, that wasn't mean. I can't
_make_ things. It isn't every one--can _make_ a place...."

Sec.2

Mr. Brumley found their subsequent conversation the fullest realization
of his extremest hopes. Behind his amiable speeches, which soon grew
altogether easy and confident again, a hundred imps of vanity were
patting his back for the intuition, the swift decision that had
abandoned his walk so promptly. In some extraordinary way the incident
of the board became impossible; it hadn't happened, he felt, or it had
happened differently. Anyhow there was no time to think that over now.
He guided the lady to the two little greenhouses, made her note the
opening glow of the great autumnal border and brought her to the rock
garden. She stooped and loved and almost kissed the soft healthy
cushions of pampered saxifrage: she appreciated the cleverness of the
moss-bed--where there were droseras; she knelt to the gentians; she had
a kindly word for that bank-holiday corner where London Pride still
belatedly rejoiced; she cried out at the delicate Iceland poppies that
thrust up between the stones of the rough pavement; and so in the most
amiable accord they came to the raised seat in the heart of it all, and
sat down and took in the whole effect of the place, and backing of
woods, the lush borders, the neat lawn, the still neater orchard, the
pergola, the nearer delicacies among the stones, and the gable, the
shining white rough-cast of the walls, the casement windows, the
projecting upper story, the carefully sought-out old tiles of the roof.
And everything bathed in that caressing sunshine which does not sc