She replied quite seriously, though he could have imagined some girls rather simpering over the question as a casual joke.
“One would begin at the fences,” she said. “Don't you think so?”
“That is practical.”
“That is where I shall begin at Stornham,” reflectively.
“You are going to begin at Stornham?”
“How could one help it? It is not as large or as splendid as this has been, but it is like it in a way. And it will belong to my sister's son. No, I could not help it.”
“I suppose you could not.” There was a hint of wholly unconscious resentment in his tone. He was thinking that the effect produced by their boundless wealth was to make these people feel as a race of giants might—even their women unknowingly revealed it.
“No, I could not,” was her reply. “I suppose I am on the whole a sort of commercial working person. I have no doubt it is commercial, that instinct which makes one resent seeing things lose their value.”
“Shall you begin it for that reason?”
“Partly for that one—partly for another.” She held out her hand to him. “Look at the length of the shadows. I must go. Thank you, Lord Mount Dunstan, for showing me the place, and thank you for undeceiving me.”