"But of course a man comes to like a place when he's been accustomed to think of it as his home for all his life past and to come."
"What would you do if you lost it?" she asked.
"I've no intention of losing it," he answered, laughing, but looking again from her and toward his home. "We've had it six hundred years; we shan't lose it now, I think."
"No, I suppose not." He was holding out his hand. "Good-by, Mr Tristram. May I come and thank your mother?"
"Oh, but she'll come here, if she's well enough."
"I'll save her the journey up the hill."
He bowed in courteous acceptance of her offer as he shook hands.
"You see the foot-bridge over the river there? There's a gate at each end, but the gates are never locked, so you can reach us from the road that way if you're walking. If you want to drive, you must go a quarter of a mile higher up, just below the Pool. Good-by, Madame Zabriska."
Mina watched him all the way down the hill. He had made an impression on her—an intellectual impression, not a sentimental one. There was nothing of the boy about him, unless it were in that little flourish over the antiquity of his house and its surroundings; even that might be the usual thing—she had not seen enough of his class to judge. There was too that love of the place which he had shown. Lastly,
there was the odd air of wariness and watching; such it seemed to her, and it consented to seem nothing else.