Secure in the unswerving fidelity of Quong Ho, and in the impregnable seclusion of this God-disclosed hermitage, John Baltazar lived a life according to his ideals. No outer ripple of the maëlstrom in which the world was engulfed lapped, however faintly, against the low granite wall encircling the low-built granite farmhouse. His retirement was absolute, his retreat off the track of the most casual wanderer.
Six months passed before his eyes rested on a human being other than Quong Ho. It is true that the rate-collector, savagely cursing his luck and the bicycle-destroying track that led from the road to the farmhouse, had appeared one day with a paper showing certain indebtedness; but Quong Ho had received it and, gravely promising a cheque in payment, had dismissed the intruder. No other official came near the place. Quong Ho called weekly at the Post office and railway station, to the great relief of postman and van-driver.
“Thought and money acutely applied,” remarked Baltazar, “together with freedom from the entanglement of family relationships, are the determining factors of human happiness. A man with these factors at his disposal is a fool if he cannot, fashion for himself whatever kind of existence he pleases.”
But one day, a cloudless winter morning, when the sunshine kissing the frost-bound earth transmuted the myriad frondage of the heather into a valley of diamonds, Baltazar, on his way from the stable to the front door, came across a stranger leaning over the gate. He was a heavy man with a fat, clean-shaven face, loose lips and little furtive eyes. He wore a new golfing suit exaggerated in cut and aggressive in colour.
He said with easy familiarity: “Good morning, Mr. Baltazar.”
“Since you know my name,” replied Baltazar, with an air of courtesy, “it has doubtless struck you that this is my gate.”
“Of course——”
“You are leaning on it,” said Baltazar.
The visitor, perplexed, straightened himself.
“I’m a sort of neighbour of yours, you know. I live about seven miles off—the big property this side of Water-End: Cedar Chase—and I’ve often thought I’d run over in the Rolls-Royce as far as I could, and walk the rest, and see how you were getting along.”