"There iss no need. I will arrange it, and you will tek your meals in here just as usual. Which room woult you like in the big house?"
"I'll go up and have a look round. Does it make any difference to you which I choose? I'd like one with a balcony if it's all the same to you."
"It iss all the sem, and I will get it ready for you as soon ass I hear from Mrs. Lee. You will not be afraid, all alone by yourself up there?"
"Afraid? No. What is there to be afraid of?"
"Och, I do not know. Only—all alone—sometimes one iss afraid—"
"There aren't any ghosts about, are there?"
"Ghosts? Noh!"—with a ghost of a laugh. "I do not believe in ghosts or any such things, though some people does. There are some people"—very scornfully—"will not go by the churchyard at night, and"—lest so sceptical a mind should provoke reprisal—"I do not know that I woult myself. And down by the Coupée—But the house there iss too new to have anything like that." "Well, if I see any I'll try and catch one and bring it down to breakfast."
And so it was arranged that, if the permission of the owner of the Red House could be obtained, he should sleep there and come down to the cottage for his meals, Mrs. Carré undertaking that no inconvenience should thereby be caused to any of those concerned.
He strolled up the garden, with the dogs racing in front, to choose his bedroom, and came across his host unwillingly busy with hoe and spade in the potato patch. His whole aspect betokened such undisguised sufferance that Graeme could not repress a smile.
"Like it?" he asked.