"I don't know—I wonder if you're right? Perhaps I am fonder of you. I love Clare—that's quite a different thing. One couldn't be fond of Clare. That would be commonplace. She's the sort of wonderful person you just worship. She's like a cathedral—a sort of mystery. Now you're like a country cottage, Roger. Of course, one couldn't be fond of a cathedral."
"A cottage," remarked Roger to the tulips in his turn, "can be made a very comfortable place. Especially if it's a good-sized one—Holt Meadows, for instance. My tenants leave in June, did you know? There's a south wall and a croquet ground."
"Tennis?"
Roger was afraid the tulips would find it too small for tennis.
"But a court could be made in Nicholas Nye's paddock," Alwynne reminded them.
Roger thought it would be rather fun to live there, tennis or no tennis—didn't the tulips think so?
The tulips did, rather.
"One could buy Witch Wood for a song, I believe; you know it runs along the paddock. Think of it, all Witch Wood for a wild garden."
"And no trespassers! No trampled hyacinths any more! Or ginger-beer bottles! Oh, Roger!" A delighted, delightful Alwynne was forgetting all about the tulips; but they nodded very pleasantly for all that.
"A footpath through to The Dears' garden, and my glass-houses. And chickens in a corner of the paddock. You'd have to undertake those."