“Ha! Temple of the Winds!” he said. “Hall of Æolus! Æolian hall. I’ll call the study Æolian Hall. Capital! I’m naming—or, rather, Agnes and I are naming all the rooms. It gives a house so much more character.”
They strolled out into the hall.
“Agnes thought of an excellent name to put on the baize door of the passage to the servants’ room,” he continued. “She suggested—in fact, she invented—the word ‘Abigailia,’ the country of the maid-servants, you see. Abigaildom was her first suggestion, but I proposed Abigailia on the analogy of Philistia. The whole idea, though, was hers. Come through the dining-room; we shall go out without being seen from the front if anybody calls. And they will truthfully say that we are all out.”
They passed accordingly through the dining-room, where the blinds were down to keep out the afternoon sun, and the table-cloth already laid for dinner glimmered whitely in the dusk. It was not, however, so dark that Hugh could not read over the chimney-piece, in Roman characters, “They sat down to eat and drink,” while over the door into the garden was the appropriate conclusion, “And rose up to play.”
“And you have been in London all these last three months, have you not?” he went on. “Busy, I suppose, or at any rate occupied? Agnes was very neat on the subject the other day. She said, ‘In town they seem to make a business of pleasure, whereas here I am sure we make a pleasure of business.’ Like all true wit, too, it contains a profound truth.”
This true wit, however, did not inspire Hugh with any fresh thoughts on the subject, and he changed the subject with some abruptness.
“Oh, yes, one is always occupied in London!” he said. “By the way, do you know if Mrs. Allbutt is down here? You know her, don’t you? Which is her house? I have not been down since she moved here.”
Dick Alington’s face grew slightly reserved.
“Yes, she has taken Friars Grange,” he said; “the house by the river. She has, however, called it Chalkpits, which she tells me is its real name on the old leases. A pity, I think, rather. Of course, I should be the last to decry the spirit of antiquarian exactitude, but it is possible to lose the sense of romance in what is after all mere pedantry.”
“Oh, I think I feel with her!” said Hugh. “Every retired grocer lives in a grange.”