She disappeared within the house just as the old-fashioned door-bell clanged sonorously.
A few seconds later a trim maid-servant—that same tall parlor-maid who had once before come opportunely on the scene—tripped out, conducting a handsome old gentleman, whom she announced as “the Reverend George Treherne.”
I rose to greet him, of course.
“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Treherne,” I said, and he could not know how exceptionally truthful the conventional words were. “I must introduce myself—Maurice Wynn. My cousin, Mrs. Cayley, will be down directly; Jim—Mr. Cayley—is on the golf links. Won’t you sit down—right here?”
I politely pulled forward the most comfortable of the wicker chairs.
“Thanks. You’re an American, Mr. Wynn?” he asked.
“That’s so,” I said, wondering how he guessed it so soon.
We got on famously while we waited for Mary, chatting about England in general and Cornwall in particular. He’d been vicar of Morwen for over forty years.
I had to confess that I’d not seen much of the neighborhood at present, though I hoped to do so now I was better.
“It’s the loveliest corner in England, sir!” he asserted enthusiastically. “And there are some fine old houses about; you Americans are always interested in our old English country seats, aren’t you? Well, you must go to Pencarrow,—a gem of its kind. It belongs to the Pendennis family, but—”