"What's that?" he asked. "You three look as if you were conspiring together. No secrets are allowed in this establishment—excepting Mrs. Quirk's and my own. Now, what is it, Kath.?"
"We are going to see the Bishop to-morrow," said Denis. "I intend to put his Lordship to a severe test. He shall be placed alongside my Bishop, and judged in that comparison."
"Six to four on his Lordship," said Desmond, still lazily.
"Will you come?" Kathleen asked.
"Of course I will. I have a spiritual conundrum of my own to be answered, and no one can find the solution but he. Book a seat for me in the car."
"May we take Molly Healy?" Kathleen asked.
"Who better? Molly Healy would make the longest road short and the roughest one smooth. If we puncture or blow out, she will cause us to forget the trials that pursue the tyres of a motor car."
The following day, at nine o'clock, the big "Layton" car, resplendent in a recent coat of paint, well shod, and perfectly equipped, started from the house on the long journey to Millerton. Denis Quirk was at the wheel, the chauffeur beside him. In the tonneau Molly Healy and Desmond O'Connor kept up a crossfire of good-humoured raillery, while Kathleen sat between them, smiling at their jests. It was a bright, sunny day, with a gentle breeze blowing from the south; the roads were smooth, and the motor throbbed along throwing the miles behind her, and the dust in the faces of those whom they passed on their way.
"A brief epitome of this Commonwealth," said Denis Quirk, with a wave of his hand as they were running through a vast, untenanted domain, protected on either side by rows of dark green pines. "Neglected opportunities! Land that should be supporting one hundred families wasted on one man."
Again they were hurrying between cultivated farms and farm houses, widely scattered, but sufficiently near to one another to represent civilisation. Double-fronted wooden houses were dotted here and there, single-storied, each with its wide verandah, a small garden, and possibly a row of pine trees to guard them from the wind. Behind them each had its row of wooden outbuildings, large haystacks, and sleek cattle feeding on green meadow-land.