“Oh, you have sent—”
“No; more guests arriving, that’s all. Late comers.”
“Like Sir Brooke?”
“No, not like Sir Brooke. Sir Brooke promised to come yesterday; these weren’t expected until to-day.”
“And one of them will be able to tell—”
“Doctor Aire should be able to tell,” said Pendleton wearily. “Come on over to the court, and let’s forget this.”
I acceded gladly enough. Belvoir begged off on the score of writing letters, and Cosgrove, that moment hailing us from the library window, came through the armoury door in baggy knickers and an Irish edition of a sportsman’s coat (black and astonishingly high in the collar).
While Cosgrove, Pendleton, and I moved along northward and surveyed the meagre walls of the glazed conservatory, we could tell from the mere vestiges that that large room and the storey of three bed-chambers ranged above it were later engraftings to the house. The tinting of the stones was bolder, undarkened, and brick had been used to some extent north of the tower that marked the limit of the original wall.
An odd thing, that conservatory window fractured by the Parson in his latest escapade. Brilliant purple clematis framed the lower expanses of conservatory glass. Beneath a small birch-tree opposite the great burst-in window we paused for a moment in order that I might see the damaged section. Again the blooms within sent out a heady breath. The gap in the glass was extremely irregular in shape, a good five feet in its tallest dimension, half that in its widest. To-day, said Pendleton, the glazier from New Aidenn, already come for a preliminary examination, would bring his paraphernalia and close up the place.
“That’s quite an opening unprotected.”