‘How is Mrs. Barnet?’ asked Downe.
‘Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,’ the other answered constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one of self-consciousness.
Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up another thread of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his election as a council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that event took place; Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs. Barnet, but he feared that she had failed to do so as yet.
Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. ‘We should have been glad to see you. I—my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you know . . . Yes, I am a member of the corporation—rather an inexperienced member, some of them say. It is quite true; and I should have declined the honour as premature—having other things on my hands just now, too—if it had not been pressed upon me so very heartily.’
‘There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite see the necessity for,’ said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. ‘What the deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you have already got such an excellent house as the one you live in?’
Barnet’s face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question had been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding flocks and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent embarrassment—
‘Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am living in is rather old and inconvenient.’ Mr. Downe declared that he had chosen a pretty site for the new building. They would be able to see for miles and miles from the windows. Was he going to give it a name? He supposed so.
Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely to be mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name.
‘But I think it has a name!’ Downe observed: ‘I went past—when was it?—this morning; and I saw something,—“Château Ringdale,” I think it was, stuck up on a board!’
‘It was an idea she—we had for a short time,’ said Barnet hastily. ‘But we have decided finally to do without a name—at any rate such a name as that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It was taken down last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!’ he added grimly.