"Mr. Sprague and Mr. Purvis," said Ricordo, emphasising their names just as a foreigner might do. "Ah, you know them? I think they are coming this way."
"I must get back, Mr. Briarfield," said Olive quickly. "Father is expecting me to lunch."
"I will walk back with you," said Briarfield.
"And I, too, if I may," said Ricordo.
"You are not playing this afternoon?" said Briarfield.
"No, I think I am lazy, or perhaps I am getting old. We Easterns, you know, love to sit in the sun rather than exercise in it. Not that I feel tired. The air here gives one vigour. Ah, Miss Castlemaine, you were a benefactress to the tired part of the people of your country when you built your homestead."
"Only to a small degree, I am afraid," replied Olive. "It is only the few who can take advantage of it."
"Ah, but if all, situated as you are, would do likewise——" remarked Ricordo. "But there, I must not complain, I am one of the few. Besides, I have more than my deserts. I have not been regarded as an alien. Ah, you must be very trustful to take a stranger in without asking questions."
"Miss Castlemaine is no respecter of nationalities," interposed Herbert Briarfield.
"Ah, no, to be poor, to be tired—that is enough. But Mr. Sprague and Mr. Purvis, whom I played the golf with, they did not look either poor or tired. But perhaps they know you—they spoke as though they did."