The castle now arose before them, endowed by the rayless shade with a more massive majesty than either sunlight or moonlight could impart; and Havill sighed again as he thought of what he was losing by Somerset’s rivalry. ‘Well, what was the use of coming here?’ he asked.
‘I thought it might suggest something—some way of seeing the design. The servants would let us into his room, I dare say.’
‘I don’t care to ask. Let us walk through the wards, and then homeward.’
They sauntered on smoking, Dare leading the way through the gate-house into a corridor which was not inclosed, a lamp hanging at the further end.
‘We are getting into the inhabited part, I think,’ said Havill.
Dare, however, had gone on, and knowing the tortuous passages from his few days’ experience in measuring them with Somerset, he came to the butler’s pantry. Dare knocked, and nobody answering he entered, took down a key which hung behind the door, and rejoined Havill. ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘The cat’s away; and the mice are at play in consequence.’
Proceeding up a stone staircase he unlocked the door of a room in the dark, struck a light inside, and returning to the door called in a whisper to Havill, who had remained behind. ‘This is Mr. Somerset’s studio,’ he said.
‘How did you get permission?’ inquired Havill, not knowing that Dare had seen no one.
‘Anyhow,’ said Dare carelessly. ‘We can examine the plans at leisure; for if the placid Mrs. Goodman, who is the only one at home, sees the light, she will only think it is Somerset still at work.’
Dare uncovered the drawings, and young Somerset’s brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill’s head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly in the circumstance that Somerset had not attempted to adapt an old building to the wants of the new civilization. He had placed his new erection beside it as a slightly attached structure, harmonizing with the old; heightening and beautifying, rather than subduing it. His work formed a palace, with a ruinous castle annexed as a curiosity. To Havill the conception had more charm than it could have to the most appreciative outsider; for when a mediocre and jealous mind that has been cudgelling itself over a problem capable of many solutions, lights on the solution of a rival, all possibilities in that kind seem to merge in the one beheld.