“What, do you know her?” he asked.
Mr. Sabin affected to be deeply interested in a distant point of the landscape. The man muttered something to himself and turned up the drive.
“You have met her abroad, maybe?” he suggested.
Mr. Sabin took absolutely no notice of the question. The man’s impertinence was too small a thing to annoy him, but it prevented his asking several questions which he would like to have had answered. The man muttered something about a civil answer to a civil question not being much to expect, and pulled up his horse in front of the great entrance porch.
Mr. Sabin, calmly ignoring him, descended and stepped through the wide open door into a beautiful square hall in the centre of which was a billiard table. A servant attired in unmistakably English livery, stepped forward to meet him.
“Is Mrs. Peterson at home?” Mr. Sabin inquired.
“We expect her in a very few minutes,” the man answered. “She is out riding at present. May I inquire if you are Mr. Sabin, sir?”
Mr. Sabin admitted the fact with some surprise.
The man received the intimation with respect.
“Will you kindly walk this way, your Grace,” he said.