"No," said Drake diplomatically. He was reluctant to announce himself. "You are making some alterations?" he said.
"Rather, sir," assented the foreman, with a self-satisfied smile. "We're just turning the old place inside out. For the new lord, you know."
"I see," said Drake.
He knew that he ought to have said: "I am the new lord—I am Lord Angleford." But he shrank from it. The whole thing, the transformation of the old place, though he knew it was necessary, was distasteful to him.
"What is that?" and he nodded toward a cluster of small globes in the center of the hall.
"Oh, that! That's the electric light," said the man. "There's going to be electric lights all over the house. Wait a minute, and I'll turn some of it on; though perhaps I'd better not, for the gentleman who manages it is away to-day. He's gone to Southampton to see after some things which ought to have come this morning."
"Don't trouble," said Drake absently.
"Well, perhaps I'd better not," said the man. "He mightn't like it. He's the gent that lives in the lodge."
"In the lodge!" said Drake. "The south lodge?"
The man nodded.