"I too have dreams," said Mrs. Worters, "but I am not so foolish as to mention them afterwards."
Mercifully we were interrupted. A rich virile voice close behind us said, "Cherish your dreams!" We had been joined by our host, Harcourt Worters—Mrs. Worters' son, Miss Beaumont's fiance. Ford's guardian, my employer: I must speak of him as Mr. Worters.
"Let us cherish our dreams!" he repeated. "All day I've been fighting, haggling, bargaining. And to come out on to this lawn and see you all learning Latin, so happy, so passionless, so Arcadian——"
He did not finish the sentence, but sank into the chair next to Miss Beaumont, and possessed himself of her hand. As he did so she sang: "Áh yoù sílly àss góds lìve in woóds!"
"What have we here?" said Mr. Worters with a slight frown.
With the other hand she pointed to me.
"Virgil—" I stammered. "Colloquial translation——"
"Oh, I see; a colloquial translation of poetry." Then his smile returned. "Perhaps if gods live in woods, that is why woods are so dear. I have just bought Other Kingdom Copse!"
Loud exclamations of joy. Indeed, the beeches in that copse are as fine as any in Hertfordshire. Moreover, it, and the meadow by which it is approached, have always made an ugly notch in the rounded contours of the Worters estate. So we were all very glad that Mr. Worters had purchased Other Kingdom. Only Ford kept silent, stroking his head where the Virgil had hit it, and smiling a little to himself as he did so.
"Judging from the price I paid, I should say there was a god in every tree. But price, this time was no object." He glanced at Miss Beaumont.