“You’ll find it hard work. Meantime you had better get up—it’s gone midnight.” That sent her up with a little shocked cry. He lifted in the bicycle, and mounted beside her. “Now—where are we going?”
She told him. Misperton Brand was the first village he came to.
“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I had adventures there, ages ago. I encamped in a park—Lord Somebody’s park—and they turned me out. But I met that lord afterwards, and he proved to be rather a good sort of man.”
“He’s Lord Cantacute. Do you know the Rector, Mr. Germain?”
“No. I don’t get on with rectors. They seem to think that I should go to their churches, but I never do. I don’t ask them to mine; why should they ask me to theirs? There’s an obliquity about Christianity which beats me. What’s his name? Germain? Any relation of Lord George’s, I wonder? celebrated man, to whom the Americans ought to put up a statue. He gave them their country, I believe. Gave it away to them, you might put it.”
She knew nothing of Lord George. “There’s a Mr. John Germain,” she said, not quite ingenuously, “who is head of the family.”
He considered Mr. John Germain. “I believe I’ve come against him, too, somewhere. Germain—Germain—Shotaway—Shotover? That’s it—Shotover House—big red and white place, with a pediment and a park. Near Reading. Yes, I was turned out of that, too. Solemn old boy, thin, with glasses.”
She flushed up in the dark. “He’s very nice. He’s staying here. I know him. He’s kind.”
Her companion looked round. “Do you mean that he’s kind to you, or kind all round? He wasn’t very kind to me. He said that I fostered contempt for my class. I admitted it, and he got angry. Why shouldn’t I, if I believe it contemptible?”
“He’s very kind to me,” she replied seriously. “He’s a gentleman, you know, and——”