She was alone now with Trevor d’Arcy, at Gorston Old Hall.
Denin cabled an answer to Barbara, and then began a letter to her. He was in the midst of it, when he was disturbed by a caller, a man he had never seen before. Expecting no one, the hermit of the Mirador had been writing out of doors, in the pergola, and so was caught without a chance of escape. He sprang up and stood in front of the little table on which were his paper and ink, as if to protect the letter from the touch of a stranger’s eyes. But the visitor, who had caught sight of John Sanbourne through the network of leaves and flowers, appeared blissfully ignorant that he was unwelcome.
He was tall, almost as tall as Denin himself, though he looked less than his height, because of a loose stoutness which hung upon him as if his clothes were untidily padded. His large face, and the whites of his eyes, and his big teeth, were all of much the same shade of yellow; and his hair, turning gray, had streaks of that color under the Panama hat which he did not remove.
“Good afternoon. I suppose you are Mr. Sanbourne?” he remarked, in a throaty voice, with a certain air of condescension which told that here was no author-worshiping pilgrim. “My name is Carl Pohlson Bradley.”
“Ah! How do you do?” replied Denin aloofly. He wanted to go on with his letter.
“I’m pretty well, thank you,” responded the other, accepting the suggested solicitude for his health as fact, not a fiction of politeness. “I got here this morning. Staying at the Potter, of course. I been taking a look round the place.”
“Ah!” said Denin again. He could not think—and did not much care to think—of anything else to say. But the large yellow face changed slightly, in surprise. “I expect you heard I was likely to come, didn’t you?”
“No,” said Denin. “Not to my recollection.” Then more kindly, “I’m rather a hermit. I go out very little, and have only a few callers. I don’t get much news, except what I see in the papers.”
“It was in the papers.” The tone in which Mr. Carl Pohlson Bradley gave this piece of information suggested that his prominence was international as well as physical.