She dried her eyes, looked at me in a puzzled way. “You always repulse me,” she said.
“I appreciate your kindness in remembering to toss a few crumbs to the starving man,” laughed I. “They are precious crumbs, no doubt, and more than he deserves. But—please don’t do it. He hates that sort of thing. You are free to act as you feel like acting. I’ll do as much for you and Margot without the crumbs as with them.”
“How hard you are, Godfrey! How you have always misunderstood me!”
“That’s right,” said I amiably. “I’m too coarse for such a fine nature. Well—good night.”
I took myself hastily away to bed; and at ten the next morning I departed for London.
I decided to see Margot first. She was at Sothewell Abbey, about an hour by express from Paddington. You perhaps know Sothewell Abbey through the pictures and descriptions. And it is indeed an imposing pile of old masonry seated in the midst of a park of surpassing beauty. As soon as I entered the ancient gates for the two-mile drive to the Abbey, I saw signs that my money was in action. When I first visited it, the lodge was in sad disrepair, the gates were about to fall to pieces and the vista of the drive was unkempt. Now, all was changed. The servile pair who came out to open for me, and made me fear they would drop down on their bellies and crawl before me, were neatly and properly dressed, in strong contrast to their former appearance.
The exterior of the house, which had been most “romantic” but obviously the front of poverty and decay, looked much better—not younger I hasten to assure you, quiet reader, but somewhat like a hairless, toothless old man when he gets a nice white wig on his pate and a set of good false teeth on his shriveled gums. I saw gardeners at work—and plenty there was for them to do. Within, I saw evidences of a more adequate staff of servants; but the great halls were dreary and bare and dingy. That was a cold summer in England, even colder than the summer usually is. So, the enormous house was literally uninhabitable, like all the European palaces, city and country, that I have been in. I can fancy what such a place must be in winter with no way of heating it but open fireplaces, and not many of them. I can’t conceive any sane American, used to comfort in the way of steam heat, spending a winter in the English country. I know it is done by Americans reputedly sane; but if those at home knew what Europe in winter meant—the old-fashioned “romantic” Europe—they would not believe their expatriated countrymen sane in sacrificing comfort and health to vanity. Yes, I believe they would; for, do not they, at home, make the same imbecile sacrifices to vanity in other ways?
“Take me to some small warm room,” said I to Margot, “before I catch my death of cold.” This the instant I was within doors and felt in my very marrow the clammy chill of that picturesque vaulted hall.
“There isn’t any warm room in the house,” replied she.
“How about the kitchen?” said I.