“But you knew of the place being ours, and of our relationship?”
“Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here—because of them almost that I came to England. I’ve always liked to think of them,” said my companion.
“You merely wished to look then? We don’t pretend to be much to look at.”
He waited; her words were too strange. “You don’t know what you are, Miss Searle.”
“You like the old place then?”
Searle looked at her again in silence. “If I could only tell you!” he said at last.
“Do tell me. You must come and stay with us.”
It moved him to an oddity of mirth. “Take care, take care—I should surprise you! I’m afraid I should bore you. I should never leave you.”
“Oh you’d get homesick—for your real home!”
At this he was still more amused. “By the way, tell Miss Searle about our real home,” he said to me. And he stepped, through the window, out upon the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a setter and a young stag-hound who from the moment we came in had established the fondest relation with him. Miss Searle looked at him, while he went, as if she vaguely yearned over him; it began to be plain that she was interested in her exotic cousin. I suddenly recalled the last words I had heard spoken by my friend’s adviser in London and which, in a very crude form, had reference to his making a match with this lady. If only Miss Searle could be induced to think of that, and if one had but the tact to put it in a light to her! Something assured me that her heart was virgin-soil, that the flower of romantic affection had never bloomed there. If I might just sow the seed! There seemed to shape itself within her the perfect image of one of the patient wives of old.