"You will stay and drink tea with us, Chevalier."
"I am to be persuaded, sir, I assure you."
"Nance, get the things ready, child."
She answered perfunctorily and passed on toward the house.
De Rothan returned to his horse that was standing quietly at the bottom of the terrace steps.
"Show me the way to your stable, Durrell."
"You know it."
"I don't, sir, so long as there are eyes about. Besides——"
Durrell joined him, and they walked round by the field gate into the yard. David Barfoot met them, and Durrell signed him to take De Rothan's horse.
They turned into the shrubbery, and took to pacing one of the wild, overgrown paths. Laurels and hollies hedged them in, and arched out the sunlight. The thick canopy of leaves had smothered the grass and weeds. The soil was black and bare under the dark stems of the laurels.