Back through the garden and the sunshine he strode—dreams, what idle things were dreams! Only a fool or a poet might sit there on that old old stone seat trying to conjure up visions of a long dead past. His body was in a glow, he was conscious of a great and voracious appetite. He saw the girl who had pulled the sun blinds down and called to her.
"What's your name?" he said. "Mary or Peggy, or Molly, eh?" he smiled at her.
"Ann is my name, sir!" she said. "Ann!"
"You're not Sussex?"
She tossed her head. "Not me, thank you, sir, I come from the Fulham Road!"
"Then, Ann, where you come from does not matter, but if you love me, get me a cup of tea and—and—well anything—a good big hunk of bread and butter will do, but see that it is big and that there is plenty of butter on it and I'll wait here till you come back, Ann!"
"What a very strange young gent," the girl thought. "If I love him indeed! There's a nice way of talking!" She tossed her head, yet went off to get the tea and the bread and butter.
"If I love him indeed, well of all the impudence!"
CHAPTER XIV
"HIS SON'S WIFE"