"Like it?" replied Nell. "Would you, if you had lived here ever since the tenth century?"
"Mercy, child! how venerable I'd be!" exclaimed Antonia. She smiled in quite a tragic way—it was quite a new thing to see a smile on Antonia's face.
Nell looked at her very gravely. Her own sweet grey eyes grew full of tears.
"It will kill father," she said suddenly, in a smothered voice.
She swayed herself backwards and forwards as she spoke, in an ecstasy of pain. Strange to say, she seemed to understand Antonia, and, still stranger, Antonia understood her.
The priestess of art dropped her palette.
"Tell me about your father," she said, quickly; "tell me about yourself. You and your people have lived here for years—centuries—and it breaks your hearts to go? It's wonderfully artistic—it savours of mediæval romance. And you go for a creature like Susan Drummond—shallow as a plate—no soul anywhere about her? She gets your rooms replete with memories, and your dear briary avenues and your fir trees, and this uncultured waste?"
"It's a paddock," interrupted Nell, who could not quite follow Antonia's imagery.
"It's a waste," said Miss Bernard Temple, with fire. "The Towers is untrammelled by man's vulgar restraint. Child, I do not even know your name, but I think I understand your grief."
"You cannot," said Nell, with gentle dignity—"you are not a Lorrimer. But I'm glad I didn't vow to hate you round the bonfire. Now I'm afraid I must go."