“For cruelty, my lord?” returned Miss Blythe, with a transparent pretence of not understanding him.
“Breaking hearts,” said his lordship, “eh? I was elderly before you went away, you know, but I remember a disturbance—a disturbance.” He rapped with the knuckles of his left hand on his white kerseymere waistcoat. Miss Blythe tightened her lips and regarded him with an uncompromising air.
“Differences of sex, alone, my lord,” she said, with decision, “should preclude a continuance of this conversation.”
“Should they?” asked the old nobleman. “Do you really think so? I forget. I am a monument of old age, and I forget, but I fancy I used to think otherwise. You were the beauty of the place, you know. Is that a forbidden topic also?”
Miss Blythe blushed ever so little, but her curiously youthful eyes smiled, and it was plain she was not greatly displeased. The Earl of Barfield went quiet again, and again stared straight before him with a somewhat forlorn expression. The little old lady reminded him of her mother, and the remembrance of her mother reminded him of his own youth. He woke up suddenly. “So you've come back?” he said, abruptly. “You've bought the cottage?”
“The freehold of the cottage was purchased for me by my dear mistress,” said the little old lady. “I desired to end my days where I began them.”
“H'm!” said my lord. “We're going to be neighbors? We are neighbors. We must dwell together in unity. Miss Blythe—we must dwell together in unity. I have my hands pretty full this afternoon, and I must go. I'll just trim these laburnums, and alter—”
“I beg your lordship's pardon,” said Miss Blythe, with decision, “your lordship will do nothing of the sort.”
“Eh? Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Must clear the footway. Must have the footway clear—really must. Besides, it improves the aspect of the garden. Always does. Decidedly improves it. Joseph Beaker, hold the ladder.”
Talking thus, the old gentleman had arisen from his chair and had re-entered the roadway, but the little old lady skimmed past him and faced him at the foot of the ladder.