"Then they shall have the Cottage. It is within the walls and looks to the mountains. It is a roomy old place and has a big overgrown garden of its own."
"I wonder if he will take it from you?"
"He will have to," said the lover.
Then they went back to supper: and he was introduced to Gerald, the young bank-clerk, whose mind was not yet cured of the fever for the sea, who had a roving eye in his smooth young face; and Marcella, the eldest one of the young Grays, who was a typist in the same employment as her father. And though at first the young people were shy of Mary's lover they were quickly at home with him. The fine breeding of Walter Gray had passed on, to some extent, to every one of his children.
"It will be my privilege to look after them," Robin Drummond said to Mary. "As for the lad, he will never be a financier. He is too old for the Navy, but why should he not learn the seaman's trade on the yacht? He has a pining look which I don't altogether like."
"It will be said that you are marrying all my people," Mary said uneasily.
"We shall not hear it said," her lover answered placidly. "We shall be out of hearing of that sort of thing."
When their friendship had the ratification of weeks upon it he broached the matter of the cottage to Walter Gray. They were walking together as they usually did of evenings; and Walter Gray walked with a stick, leaning on him, with the other hand thrust through his arm. He had a groping way of walking, which Drummond had noticed and ascribed to his abstraction from the things about him. After Drummond had unfolded his plans there was a silence, during which he watched Walter Gray curiously. Was he going to refuse, as Mary had suggested?
They were near a lamp on the suburban road which stood up in the boughs of a lime, making a green flame of the tree. Walter Gray pulled up suddenly and lifted his eyes to the light.
"Do you notice anything?" he asked.