“Here? Why?”
“Because, if we go up to the house, you will infallibly be pounced on and set to work by one Baxter—a delightful fellow, but a whale for toil. I propose to conduct you on a tour round the grounds, and then we will go for a row on the lake. You will enjoy that.”
“You seem to have mapped out my future for me.”
“I have,” said Psmith with emphasis, and in the monocled eye that met hers Eve detected so beaming a glance of esteem and admiration that she retreated warily into herself and endeavoured to be frigid.
“I’m afraid I haven’t time to wander about the grounds,” she said aloofly. “I must be going and seeing Mr. Baxter.”
“Baxter,” said Psmith, “is not one of the natural beauties of the place. Time enough to see him when you are compelled to . . . We are now in the southern pleasaunce or the west home-park or something. Note the refined way the deer are cropping the grass. All the ground on which we are now standing is of historic interest. Oliver Cromwell went through here in 1550. The record has since been lowered.”
“I haven’t time . . .”
“Leaving the pleasaunce on our left, we proceed to the northern messuage. The dandelions were imported from Egypt by the ninth Earl.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Eve mutinously, “I won’t come on the lake.”
“You will enjoy the lake,” said Psmith. “The newts are of the famous old Blandings strain. They were introduced, together with the water-beetles, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Emsworth, of course, holds manorial rights over the mosquito-swatting.”