"Many things." Vashti met his eyes for a moment, then turned her own to the window and the blue waterways beyond the terrace, beyond the massed tree-tops of the pleasure grounds. "Many things, and the Islands in particular. You did not understand just now that a soldier, though condemned to stand sentry in a forgotten outpost, can still be sensitive for the honour of his service, because the root of his life lies there. You cannot understand that the root of Eli Tregarthen's life goes down into the soil he has tilled from childhood as his parents tilled it. To you Garrison Hill is a tumble-down fort, and Saaron Island a barren rock; yet you call them yours, because you have purchased them. And, nevertheless—to do you justice—you are not one who rates everything by its price in money. If you were, I could beg you to take a higher rent for Saaron and leave Eli Tregarthen undisturbed."
He shook his head. "The man pays me a fair rent; as much as I can conscientiously ask. I have a conscience, Miss Cara, and a sense of responsibility. It is not good that Tregarthen lets his children run wild there, so far from school."
"And if, sir," she went on, "you are doing this for the children's sake, I could promise you that there are means to educate them better than any children on the Islands. But the difficulty does not lie with the children. It lies in your sense of possession, which makes Saaron Farm there"—she waved a hand—"an eyesore in the view from this window, and simply because Eli Tregarthen has crossed your will. You defend an instinct of selfishness that takes about five minutes to pass into a principle with any man who buys land. You maintain the landlord's right to ordain the lives on your estate, and command them to be as you think best; nor does it seem to you to affect your claim for power that we understood and drew our nature from the Islands for years before ever you came to hear of them."
"Radicalism, ma'am!"
"Yes, sir. It is for the roots I plead, against your claim that the surface gives all."
He thrust his hands under his coat-tails again, and took a turn up and down the room.
"I do not affect to agree with you, Miss Cara," said he, not looking towards her when she stood by the French window, but stretching out his hand to the bell. "Yet, as owner of these Islands, I desire to be just. I desire also to understand these Islanders, of whom, it appears, you know so much more than I. And if you do me the honour to take luncheon with me—" Here he broke off, to ring at the bell-pull. "But I warn you I am tenacious as well as curious, and shall demand to know a little more of my lecturer."
He turned and stood blinking. Vashti had disappeared. The room was empty.
He took a step to the open window, sprang out upon the terrace, and glanced to right and left.
The terrace, too, was empty. He hurried to the stairway leading down through the shrubberies. Not so much as the glimpse of a flying skirt rewarded him.