“Oh, that's a secret. I'll tell you one of these days.” He had really no reason; he said this to gain time. He was always honest in his talk with men, but not always with women.
“I suppose I look very young,” said Lydia. “I used to be afraid of the big boys.”
“If the boys were big enough,” interposed Staniford, “they must have been afraid of you.”
Lydia said, as if she had not understood, “I had hard work to get my certificate. But I was older than I looked.”
“That is much better,” remarked Staniford, “than being younger than you look. I am twenty-eight, and people take me for thirty-four. I'm a prematurely middle-aged man. I wish you would tell me, Miss Blood, a little about South Bradfield. I've been trying to make out whether I was ever there. I tramped nearly everywhere when I was a student. What sort of people are they there?”
“Oh, they are very nice people,” said Lydia.
“Do you like them?”
“I never thought whether I did. They are nearly all old. Their children have gone away; they don't seem to live; they are just staying. When I first came there I was a little girl. One day I went into the grave-yard and counted the stones; there were three times as many as there were living persons in the village.”
“I think I know the kind of place,” said Staniford. “I suppose you're not very homesick?”
“Not for the place,” answered Lydia, evasively.