"I see. You could do that."
"Could I? The land's entailed. I can't sell it away from my son. And he'll never do anything with it."
"Aren't there other things you could have done?"
"I suppose I could have got the farmers out. Turned them off the land they've sweated their lives into. Or I could have sold my town house instead of letting it and bought land."
"Of course you could. Oh—why didn't you?"
"Why didn't I? Ah—now you've got me. Because I'm a lazy old humbug,
Mary. All my farming's in my head when it isn't on my conscience."
"You don't really like farming: you only think you ought to. What do you really like?"
"Going away. Getting out of this confounded country into the South of
France. I'm not really happy, Mary, till I'm pottering about my garden at
Agaye."
She looked where he was looking. Two drawings above the chimney-piece. A chain of red hills swung out into a blue sea. The Estérel. A pink and white house on the terrace of a hill. House and hill blazing out sunshine.
Agaye. Agaye. Pottering about his garden at Agaye. He was happy there.