‘It has gone into the tunnel,’ said Paula. ‘Have you seen the tunnel my father made? the curves are said to be a triumph of science. There is nothing else like it in this part of England.’
‘There is not: I have heard so. But I have not seen it.’
‘Do you think it a thing more to be proud of that one’s father should have made a great tunnel and railway like that, than that one’s remote ancestor should have built a great castle like this?’
What could Somerset say? It would have required a casuist to decide whether his answer should depend upon his conviction, or upon the family ties of such a questioner. ‘From a modern point of view, railways are, no doubt, things more to be proud of than castles,’ he said; ‘though perhaps I myself, from mere association, should decide in favour of the ancestor who built the castle.’ The serious anxiety to be truthful that Somerset threw into his observation, was more than the circumstance required. ‘To design great engineering works,’ he added musingly, and without the least eye to the disparagement of her parent, ‘requires no doubt a leading mind. But to execute them, as he did, requires, of course, only a following mind.’
His reply had not altogether pleased her; and there was a distinct reproach conveyed by her slight movement towards Mrs. Goodman. He saw it, and was grieved that he should have spoken so. ‘I am going to walk over and inspect that famous tunnel of your father’s,’ he added gently. ‘It will be a pleasant study for this afternoon.’
She went away. ‘I am no man of the world,’ he thought. ‘I ought to have praised that father of hers straight off. I shall not win her respect; much less her love!’
XII.
Somerset did not forget what he had planned, and when lunch was over he walked away through the trees. The tunnel was more difficult of discovery than he had anticipated, and it was only after considerable winding among green lanes, whose deep ruts were like canyons of Colorado in miniature, that he reached the slope in the distant upland where the tunnel began. A road stretched over its crest, and thence along one side of the railway-cutting.
He there unexpectedly saw standing Miss Power’s carriage; and on drawing nearer he found it to contain Paula herself, Miss De Stancy, and Mrs. Goodman.
‘How singular!’ exclaimed Miss De Stancy gaily.