“I see that my host is beckoning me,” he said. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
Rochester passed his arm through the younger man’s.
“Come into the gun-room for a few minutes,” he said. “I want to show you the salmon flies I was speaking of.”
Saton smiled a little curiously, and followed his host across the hall and down the long stone passage which led to the back quarters of the house. The gun-room was deserted and empty. Rochester closed the door.
“My young friend,” he said, “if you do not object, I should like to have a few minutes of plain speaking with you.”
“I should be delighted,” Saton answered, seating himself deliberately in a battered old easy-chair.
“Seven years ago,” Rochester continued, leaning his elbow against the mantelpiece, “we made a bargain. I sent you out into the world, an egotistical Don Quixote, and I provided you with the means with which you were to turn the windmills into castles. I made one condition—two, in fact. One that you came back. Well, you have kept that. The other was that you told me what it was like to build the castles of bricks and mortar, which in the days when I knew you, you built in fancy only.”
“Aren’t you a little allegorical?” Saton asked, calmly.
“I admit it,” Rochester answered. “I was very nearly, in fact, out of my depth. Tell me, in plain words, what have you done with yourself these seven years?”
“You want me,” Saton remarked, “to give an account of my stewardship.”