"I think that is so," Carrie agreed. "One feels it in England. A house matures by being used; the people who live there give it a stamp, and perhaps when they go they leave an influence. It's different in Canada. When our houses get out of date, we pull them down."
Bernard looked at her rather keenly. He was a shrewd judge of men and women and saw that she could think.
"You are something of a sentimentalist; I don't know if you are right or not. When I built Dryholm we tried to get the feeling Langrigg gives one, as far as it could be expressed by line. But do you like Whitelees?"
"Whitelees is pretty," Carrie replied with caution.
Bernard's eyes twinkled. "Very pretty. Something new, in fact, after Canada?"
"Yes," said Carrie, who saw he wanted her to talk. She knew he was studying her, but he was not antagonistic like Mordaunt and Mrs. Halliday. "This is why I'd sooner have Langrigg, because I don't find Langrigg new in the way you mean," she resumed. "One gets the feeling you talk about in Canada; not in our houses but in the woods. They're different from the woods you have planted and trimmed. The big black pines grow as they want; sometimes they're charred by fire and smashed by gales. When it's quiet you hear the rivers and now and then a snowslide rolling down the hills."
"Rugged and stern? Well, I imagine the men who built Langrigg long since were rather like your pioneers."
Carrie thought Bernard had something of the spirit of the pioneers; this was why he was like Jim. She felt his strength and tenacity, but he did not daunt her.
"Why did you make Dryholm so big?" she asked.
"You don't think an old man needs so large a house?" he said. "Well, I built for others whom I thought might come after me, but that is done with." He paused and looked down the table at Mordaunt and Evelyn; and then Carrie imagined his eyes rested on Jim, as he added: "Sometimes I am lonely."