“Yes,” she said, nodding. “But—do you care for butterflies or beetles? No? Dear me! Oh, you are a botanist!”
I hastened to disclaim the soft impeachments.
“Then”—she knit her brow, and looked like a child making up an old woman’s face—“then you like geology?”
I remembered Thomas’ mention of the visitors who went about with hammers, and responded gravely to my catechist.
“I prefer to look at Nature and to ask no questions,” I said.
Then there was some talk of the covered way from the road above, which my host informed me was built by his father.
“He had some peculiar pleasure in startling people,” he said. “He used to give out that he was a social hermit; and although he lived down here much like other people live, would go about in town strangely dressed and behave oddly. My poor father was very eccentric.”
He made the remark so innocently that I involuntarily glanced at his companion. She seemed unaware that there was anything naïf in those words, and met my eyes with a deep, enquiring look. I have never seen such child eyes in a woman’s face.
Then the luncheon bell rang, and I was conducted to my room by a blushing youth in livery. I was burning to know who “Lilia” was—for that brief introduction was all that I had had—but I could not ask the gauche young footman (evidently a “new hand”). So I washed my hands and wondered, as I gazed round the quaint old room. It must be an old house, although from the lawn it looked modern, and foreign, with its brilliantly white walls and bright green shutters. The flooring, though spotless, was old; the ceiling low. There was a fourposter of carved wood black with age, and the mahogany furniture, which shone like mirrors, was of an ancient pattern. White dimity hung about, and there was a fresh scent of lavender.
Going downstairs, I noticed that the shallow stairs were of old oak, likewise the balustrade; but the dining-room, to which Sir Roderick, who met me in the hall, escorted me, was of newer fashion—a square room with massive furniture, and hung with paintings.