“It isn’t,” he assured her. “It’s all made in America. I simply sit here and try to keep it.”
“Am I being at all unusual in visiting you like this?” she asked.
“I’ve had visits from lady clients before,” he replied. “Let us assume that you have come to consult me about an eight-roomed villa at Cropstone.”
“Cropstone?” she repeated. “That is the sort of garden city place, isn’t it, where one has a doll’s house with fifty feet of garden, a lecture hall with free cookery lectures twice a week, and a strap-hang in a motor-car to the station every morning.”
“One might accept that as a pessimistic impression of the place,” Jacob conceded.
Lady Mary sighed.
“That is where I shall have to live,” she said, “if I marry Maurice.”
Jacob was suddenly thoughtful. He was thinking of a small rose garden at Cropstone and a watering can.
“If you care enough,” he ventured gravely, “the conditions of life don’t seem to matter so much, do they?”
She made a little grimace.