‘“When the brave knight, Sir Tristram, entered the dungeon in which the unhappy Princess had been shut up for so long a time, he was about to spring forward and embrace her, when all at once the wicked magician stood before them, and with his wand drew a magic line across the floor. Then, although Sir Tristram and the Princess could see each other, neither of them could step over the magic line, which was like an invisible wall between them.”’ Here Tommy looked up from his book. ‘Have you ever seen a wicked magician, Aunty Laura?’
‘One or two, dear,’ she replied with a faint smile. ‘Only, nowadays, one doesn’t always know them when one sees them.’
‘Don’t you think, aunty’—this in a whisper full of mystery—‘that if Sir Frederick had a long robe and a wand, he would look something like a magician?’
Lady Dimsdale shook her head and held up a warning finger; and Tommy went on with his book.
‘It was really very kind of you, Sir Frederick, to agree to stay with us for the rest of the week,’ remarked Mrs Bowood.
‘Madam, the pleasure is all on my side,’ replied the Baronet with his most courtly air.
It would appear that in the course of conversation the previous evening the Baronet had let out the fact that his own house was in the hands of the painters and whitewashers, and that he was rendered miserable thereby. Accordingly, very little persuasion had been needed to induce him to take up his quarters at Rosemount for the next few days. There may possibly have been other reasons also which made him not displeased to be on the spot.
‘We have very few visitors just now, as you are aware,’ resumed Mrs Bowood, ‘so that you must not expect to find us very lively.’
‘My dear madam, I abhor liveliness. Had your house been full of company, nothing would have induced me to stay. When in Arcady, I like to feel that I am an Arcadian. I like to feel that I am among cows, and buttercups, and spring chickens—and—and home-cured bacon, and not among a mob of fine people from town. Hum, hum.’
Mrs Bowood smiled down at her work. Never was there a greater piece of artificiality in human form than the Baronet.