one keeping his tall and bulky form from falling askew.

Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them, and all three
entered the house together; Swithin in front making play 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 b