He arrived at dusk and found the family and its guests assembled in the big hall of the house. The men had been shooting, the women playing bridge, for the weather was too raw for them to care about leaving the warmth of the house. Humphrey received a somewhat vociferous welcome, for there was no one in the house with whom he was not on terms of intimacy, and felt cheered by the warmth of social intercourse into which he was plunged. "This really is rather jolly," he said to Susan Clinton, with whom he found himself presently sitting a little apart from the noisy central group. "I don't know that I ever want anything better than a big house in the country and to have it filled with jolly people."
"I shouldn't like to live in the country all the year round," said Susan. "You'd soon get out of touch."
"Oh, lor', yes," said Humphrey. "I didn't mean that. Look at my people at Kencote. It's jolly enough there every now and then in the winter when there's something to do, although it isn't exactly gay. But to settle down there year in and year out for ever—I'd just as soon emigrate. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Things are going all right for us. We shall have enough to get along on. I tell you, I'm in high favour. But the idea is that we shall set up in the dower-house, and——"
"Oh, but that will be delightful!" Susan interrupted him. "With all those jolly old things! And the presents we shall have! Humphrey, how ripping! And there's plenty of room to have people there. If we can afford to do things well——"
"Yes, that'll be all right," said Humphrey. "But the idea is that we shall cut all the rest. I'm to give up my job, which I don't care about either one way or the other, except that it keeps me about where I want to be, and I'm to be sort of head bailiff. That's the scheme, as it's shaping itself out. Question is whether it's good enough."
"Do you mean we shouldn't be allowed to go to London at all?"
"Oh, allowed! We could go up for a day or two now and again—though if I know my respected parent there would be black looks even at that, if we did it too often—but as for anything more than that—— No, it's meant and it's intended to mean that I join the governor in business. He's really, if you look at it properly, a farmer in a big way, and he's not very good at it, though he thinks he is. It's where I come in over Dick that he must have somebody to help him out of the muddles he makes, and that will be a pretty stiff job, and there won't be much running away from it."
"Then you mean we can't even pay visits?"
"Precious few of 'em. We shall be expected to stay at home and lead the domestic life. Are we cut out for it, Susan?"
She smiled at him, and slipped her hand into his. "I shan't mind very much, Humphrey," she said.