, at this, got into the boat and put off; he smiled at her as she
sat there watching him. He made his short journey, disembarked and went
into the pavilion; but when he came out with the object of his errand he
saw she had quitted her station, had returned to the house without him.
He rowed back quickly, sprang ashore and followed her with long steps.
Apparently she had gone fast; she had almost reached the door when he
overtook her.

"Why did you basely desert me?" he asked, tenderly stopping her there.

"I don't know. Because I'm so happy."

"May I tell mother then?"

"You may tell her she shall have Broadwood."

XVI

He lost no time in going down to see Mr. Carteret, to whom he had
written immediately after the election and who had answered him in
twelve revised pages of historical parallel. He used often to envy Mr.
Carteret's leisure, a sense of which came to him now afresh, in the
summer evening, as he walked up the hill toward the quiet house where
enjoyment had ever been mingled for him with a vague oppression. He was
a little boy again, under Mr. Carteret's roof--a little boy on whom it
had been duly impressed that in the wide, plain, peaceful rooms he was
not to "touch." When he paid a visit to his father's old friend there
were in fact many things--many topics--from which he instinctively kept
his hands. Even Mr. Chayter, the immemorial blank butler, who was so
like his master that he might have been a twin brother, helped to remind
him that he must be good. Mr. Carteret seemed to Nick a very grave
person, but he had the sense that Chayter thought him rather frivolous.

Our young man always came on foot from the station, leaving his
portmanteau to be carried: the direct way was steep and he liked the
slow approach, which gave him a chance to look about the place and smell
the new-mown hay. At this season the air was full of it--the fields were
so near that it was in the clean, still streets. Nick would never have
thought of rattling up to Mr. Carteret's door, which had on an old
brass plate the proprietor's name, as if he had been the principal
surgeon. The house was in the high part, and the neat roofs of other
houses, lower down the hill, made an immediate prospect for it, scarcely
counting, however, since the green country was just below these,
familiar and interpenetrating, in the shape of small but thick-tufted
gardens. Free garden-growths flourished in all the intervals, but the
only dis