And in the drawing-room, after a depressing ramble through the dreary house, tea was served by a couple of elderly women (local) and it was certainly not deficient in strength. Neither was the cake (local) nor the china. Young Mr. Overton was already making a heroic attempt to introduce a scheme of economy that should tend to lessen the dead weight of the expense to which he had been put in purchasing the historic house.
Some members of the party wished that he had gone a little further in the same direction and had refrained from forcing his recherché entertainment upon them. They swallowed a portion of the black tea, however, and congratulating him upon the appearance of everything—for any one who was fond of developing a property, as he assured them he was, the state of the house and grounds left nothing to be desired—wondered secretly why he should have asked them to visit such a scene of desolation.
If Amber was among those who marvelled what his motive could be, her doubts were dispelled when she found herself alone with him at one of the drawingroom windows: the other members of the party had made their escape to the field of grass called by a daring figure of speech, a lawn; but she had allowed herself to be persuaded to sample, so to speak, a view from a side window. She admitted that the silver of the river gleaming between the yew hedges was very effective, and felt convinced that it would be improved by a judicious trimming of the shrubs.
“And you like the old place?” said he. “It has surprised you, hasn’t it?”
“Surprised me?—well,—oh, yes, it certainly surprised me,” she replied. “You are looking forward to a delightful time with it, are you not? I suppose it wouldn’t have had the same attraction for you if it had been in any better condition?”
“Amber,” he said in a whisper which had something of shyness lingering in its tremulous emotion. “Amber, I lay it all at your feet.”
She allowed him to catch her hand—she was too puzzled to keep it from him. Was this his way of saying good-bye, she wondered.
“I lay everything here at your feet; if you like it, it is all yours,” he cried.
“Don’t be a goose, Guy,” she said snatching her hand away. “What on earth would I do with such a place as this?”
“Come to it—be the chatelaine of my castle, reign here, Amber, as you do in my heart. I got the place cheap; but I shall spend money on it—by degrees—to make it worthy of your acceptance, Amber, my own—my——”