His manner was civil enough, but not the correct one for a servant. He did not say “miss” or touch his cap in making the suggestion. Betty hesitated a moment.
“Is the family at home?” she inquired.
“There is no family but—his lordship. He is off the place.”
“Does he object to trespassers?”
“Not if they are respectable and take no liberties.”
“I am respectable, and I shall not take liberties,” said Miss Vanderpoel, with a touch of hauteur. The truth was that she had spent a sufficient number of years on the Continent to have become familiar with conventions which led her not to approve wholly of his bearing. Perhaps he had lived long enough in America to forget such conventions and to lack something which centuries of custom had decided should belong to his class. A certain suggestion of rough force in the man rather attracted her, and her slight distaste for his manner arose from the realisation that a gentleman's servant who did not address his superiors as was required by custom was not doing his work in a finished way. In his place she knew her own demeanour would have been finished.
“If you are sure that Lord Mount Dunstan would not object to my walking about, I should like very much to see the gardens and the house,” she said. “If you show them to me, shall I be interfering with your duties?”
“No,” he answered, and then for the first time rather glumly added, “miss.”
“I am interested,” she said, as they crossed the grass together, “because places like this are quite new to me. I have never been in England before.”
“There are not many places like this,” he answered, “not many as old and fine, and not many as nearly gone to ruin. Even Stornham is not quite as far gone.”