"Well, no; not exactly," said Geoffrey. "The fact is, I'm looking out for—for some sort of situation about a farm. I'm very fond of country life. I don't care what I do. I'm not a fine gentleman!"
The countryman looked at him with interest.
"I see," he said. "You're tired of town, I take it, sir. But what do your friends say to it, sir? At sixteen, or even seventeen, you have still to ask leave, I suppose?"
"Not always," said Geoff. "I've made no secret of it. I've no father, and—I'm pretty much my own master."
"'I care for nobody, and nobody cares for me,' eh?" quoted the young man, laughing.
"Something like it, I suppose," said Geoff, laughing too, though rather forcedly. For a vision of Vicky, sobbing, perhaps, over her lonely breakfast, would come before him—of Elsa and Frances trying how to break to their mother the news that Geoff had really run away. "They'll soon get over it," he said to himself. "They've got that old curmudgeon to console them, and I don't want to live on his money."
"Do you think I can easily find a place of some kind?" he went on, after a pause.
The countryman this time did scratch his head, while he considered.
"How old may you be, sir? Sixteen or seventeen, maybe?" he inquired.
"I'm not so much; I'm only fourteen," said Geoff, rather reluctantly.