"Here begins my property," he said, "and my idea is to have the drive entrance-gate here, and the house over yonder, just below the brow, screened from the road by those trees. The ground falls away to the south and west, you will notice, but the Lone Ash hill would keep off the wind. I want to know what you would think."
He had alighted, opened the gate, and led the horse and cart through. Now he proceeded, striding over the grass, and Melicent, her arms round her knees, forgot nervousness and bravado alike in her professional enthusiasm. They passed a large cluster of barns.
"The house was here," he said. "The man who bought it found it too far gone to repair, and knocked it down, leaving the outer shell for barn walls. Not much of a place, you see. I don't know why they put it here, except for the well. But there shouldn't be any difficulty about getting water. I sank a shaft up yonder, where I am going to show you, and we struck good water at thirty feet."
She found herself chatting to him about subsoils and surface water in a wholly professional manner.
When he reached the place where he proposed to build, she found herself unable to suggest an improvement. It was an ideal site—near the village, yet secluded, sheltered, but not shut in—overlooking a bit of broken ground which gave quite a prospect; and a regular trap for sunbeams. There was little she could suggest by way of alteration; she grasped the main features of his thought with instant appreciation. They sat down side by side upon the trunk of a felled elm; she brought out her sketch-book, and drew suggestions. By degrees a house shaped itself to her mind's eye—a house full of pleasant detail.
The south front was to face a terrace; the drawing-room to be at the western end, with two sunset avenues, converging upon the large door-window. One was to focus the dying sun in winter, one in summer. Both were to be grass walks, cypress-bordered, and they were to lead to a rectangular fish-pond, set with lilies, and reached by shelving steps. Beyond the fish-pond, a warm brick wall, with deeply alcoved seats.
The cypress-edged grass walks were her special fancy.
"But don't have them unless you like," she earnestly advised. "Some people think them sad."
He would have had hop-poles at her recommendation, but he managed to appear genuinely convinced.
Then, in fancy, his architect wandered back to the house—to the hall, with its two-branched staircase, and the windows in the gallery above.