ad calculated matters with some
nicety. He was not exactly on such terms with Mount Dunstan as would
make a casual call seem an entirely natural thing, and he wished to drop
in upon him for a casual call and in an unpremeditated manner. He
meant to reach the Mount about the time the storm broke, under
which circumstance nothing could bear more lightly an air of being
unpremeditated than to take refuge in a chance passing.

Mount Dunstan was in the library. He had sat smoking his pipe while he
watched the purple cloud roll up and spread itself, blotting out the
chrysoprase and pink and blue, and when the branches of the trees began
to toss about he had looked on with pleasure as the rush of big rain
drops came down and pelted things. It was a fine storm, and there were
some imposing claps of thunder and jagged flashes of lightning. As one
splendid rattle shook the air he was surprised to hear a summons at the
great hall door. Who on earth could be turning up at this time? His man
Reeve announced the arrival a few moments later, and it was Sir Nigel
Anstruthers. He had, he explained, been riding through the village when
the deluge descended, and it had occurred to him to turn in at the
park gates and ask a temporary shelter. Mount Dunstan received him with
sufficient courtesy. His appearance was not a thing to rejoice over, but
it could be endured. Whisky and soda and a smoke would serve to pass the
hour, if the storm lasted so long.

Conversation was not the easiest thing in the world under the
circumstances, but Sir Nigel led the way steadily after he had taken his
seat and accepted the hospitalities offered. What a place it was--this!
He had been struck for the hundredth time with the impressiveness of
the mass of it, the sweep of the park and the splendid grouping of the
timber, as he had ridden up the avenue. There was no other place like it
in the county. Was there another like it in England?

"Not in its case, I hope," Mount Dunstan said.

There were a few seconds of silence. The rain poured down in splashing
sheets and was swept in rattling gusts against the window panes.

"What the place needs is--an heiress," Anstruthers observed in the tone
of a practical man. "I believe I have heard that your views of things
are such that she should preferably NOT be an American."

Mount Dunstan did not smile, though he slightly showed his teeth.

"When I am driven to the wall," he answered, "I may not be fastidious as