“You dear thing! I believe it is. You would sacrifice yourself for me, and I should accept the sacrifice. It is the way we are made. You to give, and I to demand. Let us pray, my dear, that the day may never come when our interests do clash. Of a certainty, poor Evelyn, you would come off worse!”
Chapter Five.
Pastimes—And Mr Maplestone.
The next morning, bright and early, we called on the house-agent to sign and seal the agreement which should make us the happy owners of Pastimes for a term of years agreeably elastic.
Mr Edwards was a small, dapper little man, typically house-agenty in manner, even to the point of assuring us gravely that another tenant was urgently in the field, and that we had secured our lease by the very skin of our teeth.
Charmion lifted incredulous eyebrows.
“But, Mr Edwards, you wrote to me a second time, only a fortnight ago, to say the house was still on your hands!”
“Quite so, madam. And it was. But only on Monday Mr Maplestone motored over from Wembly. Mr Maplestone is Squire there—a very influential gentleman in these parts. He is looking out a house for a relative, and had only just heard that Pastimes was vacant. He drove over, as I say, and telegraphed to his friend that the house was too good to lose. He expected a reply this evening.”