"Sensible as well as pretty," murmured Falconer. He had drawn his chair to the window, and was gazing down at the crowded street rather absently and sadly. In a fortnight the girl who had brightened his life, who had transformed Beaumont Buildings into an earthly paradise for him, would be gone!
"Oh!" said Dick. "That would have been the late earl's wife. The present one isn't married. He's a young chap—lucky bargee! The late earl died about eighteen months ago, suddenly. I heard old Bardsley talking about it while I was in the office with him. He's been away traveling——"
"Who—old Bardsley?" asked Nell.
"No, brainless one," said Dick; "the young earl, Lord Angleford. Rather a curious sort of customer, I should fancy, for nobody seems to know where he has been, or where he is. Left England suddenly—kind of disappearance. They couldn't find him in time for the funeral, and he's away still; but he's sent orders that this place—the beggar's got three or four others in England and elsewhere, I believe—should be put in fighting trim—water supply, new stables, electric light—the whole bag of tricks. And I—I who speak to you—am going to be a kind of clerk of the works. No need to go on your knees to me, Falconer; just simply bow respectfully. You will find no alteration in me. I shall be as pleasant and affable as ever. No pride in me."
"Thank you—thank you," said Falconer, with exaggerated meekness. "But—pardon the curiosity of an humble friend—I don't quite see where Miss Lorton comes in."
"Oh, it's this way," said Dick, reaching for his pipe—for your engineer, more even than other men, must have his smoke immediately after he has stoked: "the place is empty—nobody but caretakers and a few servants—and the agent has offered me the use of one of the lodges. There is no accommodation at the inn, I understand."
"I see," said Falconer.
"Just so, perspicacious one. It happens to be a tiny-sized lodge, with two or three bedrooms. My idea is that Nell and I could take possession of the lodge, hire a slavey from the village, and have a good time of it."
"Pleasure and business combined," said Falconer. "And it will be nice, when the Buildings are as hot as—as a baker's oven, to think of Miss Lorton strolling through the woods—there must be woods, of course—or sitting with a book beside the stream—for equally, of course, there is a stream."
"Get your fiddle and play us a 'Te Deum' for the occasion," said Dick suddenly.