"You can be free as soon as you like," said Miss Arkwright carelessly.
"Ah! but at a price! You want the secret of my life. I shall only tell you the tragic story when you tell me something of yours. Meanwhile I am quite content to labor here on parole. It is true that I am forbidden the village—I am not even near enough the wall to pass the time of day (is that the local phrase?) with the outside world. But until I know more I am not anxious to leave the most delightful tyrant I have ever met."
"You ought to think yourself lucky," said Lionel, "that you're not cooling your heels in jail."
"By all accounts," said Tony blandly, "I might retort with a tu quoque."
"What do you mean?" asked Lionel, puzzled. "What do you know of me?"
Tony shrugged.
"That is part of the feuilleton," he said. "As soon as you like, we shall exchange stories. Meanwhile, permit the horny-handed aristocrat to pass along."
He went off again, whistling, leaving his questioners unsatisfied. In spite of the mystery of his presence, in spite of the recent struggle, both Lionel and his hostess felt an instinctive liking for Tony. It had been Miss Arkwright's idea to set him to work. After the capture Lionel suggested a medieval treatment of bread-and-water in a locked chamber. Police proceedings were naturally out of the question. But Miss Arkwright was original in her methods, and after an interview with the unabashed intruder, had given him a choice of penalties. Either he might elect for the modern equivalent of the deepest dungeon beneath the moat, or he might work in the garden on parole. She saw he was a gentleman, and suspected him of being an interesting addition to The Quiet House. So Tony was admitted to the drawing-room on an equality with themselves. The mornings and afternoons he spent in forced labor, a victim of the corvée; his mid-day meal and "four o'clocks" were harmoniously eaten in the potting-shed. It was curious to observe a grimy navvy enter by the back door, to appear in the drawing-room later dressed in a lounge suit, with hair carefully parted. When he played or sang to them it seemed still more incongruous, but they were all adaptable creatures and there was no constraint.
This morning it was very hot, and Lionel and Winifred went back to the hammock-chairs in the shade. The heat made the air flicker like waves, and even the midges seemed too lazy to come out. A universal torpor hung heavily in the atmosphere; one thought regretfully of slaves in offices, clerks on stools, perspiring operators in factories. For, whether it be hot or cold, work has to be done by all save the leisured classes. And even they are sometimes compelled to exert themselves either by force of circumstances or a sense of duty.
It was the latter spur that roused the Reverend Charles Peters to get to work on his sermon for next Sunday. True, there were still three days' grace; but it had been his immemorial custom to begin to write his sermon on a Wednesday, and nothing short of a new heresy in the morning's newspaper could have kept him from his desk. Whether the garden tempted him to dally amid roses, or a keen frost suggested the pleasures of a brisk walk—whether he felt disponiert and stored with telling phrases, or empty as a sieve with the wind blowing through—whether his digestion was in first-class order or cried aloud for a liver-pill,—whatever conditions obtained, duty and habit drew Mr. Peters to a task not uncongenial. So, on this morning he went to his work as usual, despite the heat, not slothful enough to delve in a well-filled drawer and read over some "cold meat" for his parishioners. He established himself in the dining-room—luckily, as it proved—for his study was being "turned out."