"I hope you will," he replied. "I'm going to Ilbersdale, you know." He reflected for some minutes, then said: "Should you advise me not to decide on this till I've seen the other?"
"What!" cried Millie, "when you've bought your land, and found your ancestors and all! I never heard of such a thing."
"I might put up a shooting-box on the moors," he said reflectively.
"You must be very rich," commented the girl, in wonder.
"I suppose I am. I did a big deal in land out there," he replied.
Privately she thought he had more money than wits; but perhaps he would make none the worse client for that.
They reached the inn, and he ushered her into the quaint, low parlour, with the usual stuffed birds, coloured almanacks and corner cupboard.
During the interval before the appearance of the roast fowl and boiled ham, she unrolled the drawings she had brought, spread them on a table in the window, and described them to him. The sun streamed in at the lattice, gilding her hair where it curled over and about the edges of her wide, flat, dark-blue cap as she sat absorbed in her plans and ideas. Her companion drank in the details of her dainty presence—from her fine skin to her firm, little hands, from her natty, embroidered collar to the strong, laced boots appearing below her short blue serge skirt. He was considering whether he found her more adorable in the lamplight in her white gown, or in the sunshine, in her workmanlike, country suit Suddenly he was conscious that he had failed to answer a question, and that a severe, surprised little face was being lifted to his.
Their glances met; he had a moment's awful apprehension. It seemed to him that she had caught him unawares without his mask. He had no notion what was the question she had asked, and he floundered desperately.
"You were saying—I am such a thundering ass—my mind had gone off. I was thinking that you can see the Lone Ash, where I want to build—from this window—there. That hill to the left—"