As much to shake off the impression his last talk with the Duchess had left on his mind, as to prolong his exercise, Jimmy had gone down out of the garden and across the place on foot over the rough winter fields with their rimy furrows and their barren floors. As he made his way towards the bottom hedge, looking for a stile he knew would be there a little farther on, cutting an entrance out through the thorn to the road, he met Westboro', like himself, on foot, and with his hand upon the stile. The presence of the Duke where Bulstrode knew he was least thought to be, and where he was now sadly sure he was not opportune, made Jimmy stop short, troubled, and, not for a moment thinking that the fact of his being there himself was singular, he made his way determinedly through the stile. As he greeted his friend, his own demeanor was decidedly one which said: "Don't go on in that direction, follow rather out of the turnstile with me." And he led his friend rather brusquely down the bank, hitching his arm in Westboro's, forced him along with him into the road.
"I ran down here to look over these meadows," said Westboro.' "You seem yourself, in a way, to be pacing the land off!"
"Oh, I love cross-country walking," said Bulstrode warmly.
"You must," smiled the Duke, "to have cut off into those barren fields. Were you lost?" Westboro' stopped and looked back. "You must have come directly down through The Dials."
"The Dials?" the American helplessly repeated. "Do you mean the old house and garden?"
Bulstrode's manner and speech were rarely curt and evasive, but he seemed this time embarrassed and taken unawares. As the two men sat in the motor which waited for the Duke down the road, Westboro' fixed his glass in his eye and looked hard for a second at his friend. Bulstrode's cheerful face was distinctly disturbed.
"I'm thinking something of buying The Dials," Westboro', after a moment, said against the wind.
Poor Jimmy. If the house had not sufficiently up till now materialized out of his fancy as a possession, it declared itself at once, without doubt, as something he must look after. It was only a little bit of England, luckily——
"Well," he exclaimed, "to be frank, old man, I've, too, been thinking I should like to buy that property. You could surely spare me this little corner of Glousceshire."
"Spare it!" cried Westboro', "my dear chap, fancy how ripping to have you a landlord here! To catch and hold you so! We'll go over the whole place together. My agent shall put the matter through for you."