"None! None!" said Claude hastily. "I have only met her for a few minutes, you know. But she is a remarkably pretty girl, and from what you say seems to be clever. Too good by half for that idiot."
"Idiot! John Parver, novelist, the lion of the season, an idiot? You forget he wrote the book of the year."
"So he says," responded Larcher dryly. "But for my part, I believe Jenny Paynton has more to do with it than he. I have no doubt she wrote it."
Further conversation was put an end to for the time being by their arrival at the vicarage. Mr. Linton, a stiff old gentleman with a severe face, received them very kindly, and unbent so far as in him lay. He had been acquainted with Tait for many years, and it was during a visit to him that the little man had seen and purchased Thorston Manor. Knowing him to be wealthy, and being well disposed toward him for his own sake, Mr. Linton was anxious to make the Lord of the Manor at home in his house. Vicars cannot afford to neglect opulent parishioners.
"I hope, Mr. Tait, that you will shortly take up your abode altogether at the Manor," said he pompously. "I am not in favor of an absentee landlord."
"Oh, you'll see a good deal of me, Mr. Linton, I assure you. I am too much in love with the beauties of the place to stay long away. Moreover, I am not a roamer like my friend Larcher here."
"It is necessary with me," said Claude, smiling; "I assure you, sir, I am not the wandering vagabond Tait would make me out to be."
"It is proper to see the world," said the vicar, with heavy playfulness, "and when you have made your fortune in far countries, Mr. Larcher, you may settle down in this favored spot."
"I could wish for nothing better, Mr. Linton. But the time is yet far off for that."
"My son is also fond of traveling," continued Mr. Linton. "Now that he is making a good income he tells me that it is his intention to go to Italy."