Set up and printed. Published September, 1923.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
PART I
A REVERSION TO TYPE
I
If the interior of Squires was revealing, it was quite unconsciously so. Lady Aviolet, one felt sure, was serenely unaware of the need of self-expression that in 1905 was called “modern,” and had she been aware of it, the necessity would not have translated itself through the medium of artistic surroundings.
The original Squires had been burnt to the ground during the Chartist riots, rebuilt, and added to until the square grey mass of flint showed odd, irregular excrescences on every side.
Lower than the house, and surrounded by red brick walls that were older, lay the square stable-yard, surmounted by a clock tower. There had always been hunters in the Aviolet stables, and hounds had been domiciled there two generations earlier.
The gardens lay behind the house. In the front were smooth slopes of grass, a croquet lawn, trim gravelled paths and groups of ornamental shrubs. A square, open space of gravel beneath twin flights of stone steps topped by an openwork stone balustrade wound away between the ornamental shrubs, and eventually became the avenue that ran down the mile length of the park.
The high road lay outside the park gates, white with thick, chalky dust. Wayfarers could see the chimneys through the screening mass of elms, beech trees, and occasional yews.
The windows were better guarded, and could neither be overlooked, nor overlook.