‘One can hardly call such a visit a strange intrusion,’ observed Mr. Bolton, and Jerome had remarked that though his voice was curt, and his accent provincial, yet that his language was proper, and even pedantic sometimes, and his grammar unimpeachable.
‘You are at liberty to “stroll round,” as you call it, as much as you please. I don’t pretend not to know that such an excursion must be painful to you—if you ever cared for the place—and from your making this visit, I conclude you did.’
‘I did, and do,’ answered Wellfield.
‘Then, though it may not be agreeable to you to know it in the possession of other people, you will not be sorry to find that it is as well-cared for as if it were your own.’
Jerome was not sorry, but he felt galled, deeply galled, to have to realise so completely how impotent he was in the matter—how this man had the power, not only to keep everything trim, but to alter and change, and upset everything, if it so pleased him.
‘I am glad to know that,’ he said, and Mr. Bolton went on.
‘May I ask if you intend to settle at Wellfield? Do you mean to live at Monk’s Gate?’
‘So far as I can see at present, I do,’ said Jerome, who, as a matter of fact, had only begun to think such a thing advisable, since he had seen Monk’s Gate. ‘But I do not know. Mr. Netley gives me to understand that my sister and I will have something to live upon. I shall, however, seek employment, which it is not always an easy matter to find. Until I do find it, I shall probably live at Monk’s Gate.’
Mr. Bolton bowed his head. ‘Do you think of staying here long, now?’ he asked.
‘I came without any definite intention, for I did not know what sort of a place Monk’s Gate was. Now I think I shall go to the inn here, if there is one, and stay perhaps a day or two, until I get things in order. And—they tell me Burnham is a very large town, and that trade there is now very good. Perhaps——’