dred," Lady Staines said. "He may as well be
comfortable."

"Pouring money into a sieve," grumbled Sir Peter. "Send for the doctor
and bring me the medical dictionary. I may as well see what it says
about consumption, and don't mention the word when Winn's about. I
_will_ have tact! If you'd used common or garden tact in this house
before, that marriage would never have taken place. I sit here simmering
with it day in and day out and everybody else goes about giving the
whole show away! If it hadn't been for my tact Charles would have
married that manicure girl years ago. Bring me my check-book. It's
nothing but a school-boy's lark, this going to Davos. Why consumption's
a pin-prick compared to gout! No pain--use of both legs--sanguine
disposition. Where the hell's that medical dictionary? Ah, it's there,
is it--then why the devil didn't you give it me before?"

Sir Peter read solemnly for a few minutes, and then flung the book on
the floor.

"Bosh!" he cried angrily. "All old woman's nonsense. Can't tell what's
going on inside a pair of bellows--can they? Then why make condemned
asses of themselves, and say they can! Don't tell Charles I've written
this check--he's the most uncivil rascal we've got."

CHAPTER IX

It was odd how Winn looked forward to seeing Staines; he couldn't
remember ever having paid much attention to the scenery before; he had
always liked the bare backs of the downs behind the house where he used
to exercise the horses, and the turf was short and smelt of thyme; and
of course the shooting was good and the house stood well; but he hadn't
thought about it till now, any more than he thought about his braces.

He decided to walk up from the station. There was a short cut through
the fields and then you came on the Court suddenly, over-looking a sheet
of water.

It was a still November day, colorless and sodden. The big elms were as
dark as wet haystacks and the woods huddled dispiritedly in a vague
mist.

The trees broke to the right of the Court and the house rose up like a
gigantic silver ghost.

It was a battered old Tudor building with an air of not having been
properly cleaned; blackened and weather-soaked, unconscionably averse
from change, it had held its own for four hundred years.

The stones looked as if they were made out of old moonlight and thin
December sunshine. A copse of small golden trees, aspen and silver
birches made a pale screen of light beside the house and