“Who knows,” smiled Ashton-Kirk, “but that it has been left to a later time to give the old place the needed touch.”
“But,” said Miss Knowles, lightly, as she followed Campe out of the room and along a passage, “there are no strange knights to beat upon the portals with the handles of their swords; there are no arquebuseers to swarm over the wall.”
“No; that’s gone for good; but,” and Bat Scanlon thought he detected an undercurrent of something in the crime specialist’s voice, “as Mr. Campe suggested a while ago, high walls cannot keep out thoughts. Peril in these later days is not as candid as in feudal times—it has a mysterious quality—we can neither hear nor see it, at times, but it is there, nevertheless.”
The girl looked at the speaker; and there was a smile in her blue eyes.
“And you think a place like Schwartzberg might get its romance in such a very modern manner! I’ll not believe it. Nothing but the clash of arms will satisfy me!”
Young Campe laughed, but there was very little of mirth in the sound.
“Why,” said he, “it may come to that in the end.”
But Miss Knowles made a pretty gesture of protest.
“Please don’t make game of me, Frederic,” she said. “You mean the tramp scoundrels who have been giving you so much trouble. They make very poor substitutes for men in armour, and I refuse to consider them.”
Room after room was visited and admired; each was in keeping, both in furnishing and decoration, with the period of the building’s architecture.