Then she lowered her head, and the light in her eyes died.
“But that sort of life’s not for me,” she said abstractedly.
“Look here,” said Nicholas John. “D’you want that sort of life?”
“What d’you mean?”
“What I say—as usual,” said Kilmuir. He waved his hand. “Would you like to wash all this out? Would you like to get down to Nature? Spend nine months of the year under her wing? Sell this mess for a birthright? Know the rain on your face, and——”
“Are you offering me a land-agent’s job?”
The man looked at his finger-tips.
“It’s more of a stewardship,” he said. “There’s a post at my place in Scotland which you could fill—most admirably. It’s been vacant—oh, twenty years now, because I could never find the right person to take it on.”
Susan put a hand to her head.
“It—it sounds like a fairy-tale,” she said. “A girl—steward. . . . Of course, you’re making this up—creating some sinecure out of compassion for me.”