“How do you do, Mr. Kingcote?” began Isabel. “I am come to restore to you a book which has been found somewhere in the fields. I fear it has suffered a little, though not so much as it might have done.”
He took the volume, and reflected for an instant before replying.
“I thank you very much, Mrs. Clarendon. Yes; I had quite forgotten that I left it behind me. It was yesterday. I should have been sorry to have lost him.”
“The book is evidently a favourite; you handle it with affection.”
“Yes, I value Sir Thomas. You know him?”
“I grieve to say that I hear his name for the first time.”
“Oh, you would like him; at least, I think you would. He is one of the masters of prose. I wish I could read you one or two things.”
“I’m sure I should be very glad. Will you come and lunch with us to-day, and bring the book with you?”
Kingcote had his eyes fixed upon her; a smile gathered in them.
“I’m afraid——” he began; then, raising his eyebrows with a humorous expression, “I am in no way prepared for the ceremony of visiting, Mrs. Clarendon.”
“Oh, but it will be in no way a ceremony!” Isabel exclaimed. “You will do me a great pleasure if you come wholly at your ease, just as you would visit Mr. Vissian. Why not?” she added quickly. “I am alone, except for the presence of Miss Warren, who always lives with me.”
“Thank you,” said Kingcote, “with pleasure I will come.”
“We lunch at half-past one. And you will bring Sir Thomas? And let me keep him a little, to remove the reproach of my ignorance?”
Kingcote smiled, but made no other reply. She leaned down from her horse and gave him her hand; he touched it very gently, feeling that little Percy Vissian’s fashion of courtesy would have been far more becoming than the mere grasp one gives to equals. Then she rode away. Isabel was, as we know, a perfect horsewoman, and her figure showed well in the habit. Kingcote fell back into his reverie.
He had but one change of garments at all better than those he wore; not having donned them for more than two months, he found himself very presentable, by comparison, when he had completed his toilet before the square foot of looking-glass which hung against the wall in his bedroom. His hair had grown a trifle long, it is true, but that rather became him, and happily he had not finally abandoned the razor. His boots were indifferently blacked by the woman who came each day to straighten things, so he took a turn with the brushes himself.
“After all,” he reflected, “it is a ceremony. I lack the courage of the natural man. But I would not have her accuse me of boorishness.”
And again: “So this is the Lady of Knightswell? The water of the well is enchanted, Percy told me. Have I already drunk the one cup which is allowed?”
He reached the house-door just before the hour appointed for luncheon. With heartbeats sensibly quickened he followed the servant who led him to the drawing-room. Mrs. Clarendon and Ada were sitting here together. Isabel presented him to Miss Warren, then took the volume from his hands and looked into it.
“You know Sir Thomas Browne, no doubt, Ada,” she said.
“I know the ‘Urn-burial,’ ” Ada replied, calmly examining the visitor.
“Ah me, you put me to shame! There’s the kind of thing that I read,” she continued, pointing to a “Society” journal which lay on the table. “By-the-bye, what was it that Mr. Asquith said in defence of such literature? I really mustn’t forget that word. Oh, yes, he said it was concrete, that it dealt with the concrete. Mr. Kingcote looks contemptuous.”
“On the whole I think it’s rather more entertaining than Sir Thomas Browne,” remarked Ada. “At all events, it’s modern.”
“Another argument!” exclaimed Isabel. “You an ally, Ada! But don’t defend me at the expense of Mr. Kingcote’s respect.”
“Mr. Kingcote would probably respect me just as much, or as little, for the one taste as for the other.”
“Miss Warren would imply,” said Kingcote in a rather measured way, due to his habits of solitude, “that after all sincerity is the chief thing.”
“And a genuine delight in the Newgate Calendar,” added the girl, “vastly preferable to an affected reverence for Shakespeare.”
Kingcote looked at her sharply. One had clearly to take this young lady into account.
“You sketch from nature, I believe, Miss Warren?” he asked, to get the relief of a new subject.
“To please myself, yes.”
“And to please a good many other people as well,” said Mrs. Clarendon. “Ada’s drawings are remarkably good.”
“I should so much like to see your drawing of the cottage at Wood End,” said Kingcote.
“When was that made?” Isabel inquired, with a look of surprise.
Luncheon was announced. As they went to the dining-room, Kingcote explained that he had passed Miss Warren when she was engaged on the sketch, before ever he had thought of living in the cottage.
“Was it that which gave you the idea?” Isabel asked.
“Perhaps it kept the spot in my mind. I was on a walking tour at the time.”
“Not thinking of such a step?”
“No; the idea came subsequently.”
During the meal, conversation occupied itself with subjects such as the picturesque spots to be found about Winstoke, the interesting houses in that part of the county, Mr. Vissian and his bibliomania, the precocity of Percy Vissian. Ada contented herself with a two-edged utterance now and then, not given however in a disagreeable way; on the whole she seemed to like their guest’s talk. Kingcote several times found her open gaze turned upon himself, and was reminded of the evening when she parted from Mr. Vissian at the gates of Knightswell.
The drawing-room had French windows, opening upon the lawn. When they had repaired thither after lunch, Ada, after sitting in silence for a few moments, rose and went out into the open air. Mrs. Clarendon followed her with her eyes, and seemed about to speak, but in the end let her pass unaddressed.
Kingcote was examining the caryatides on either side of the fireplace. He turned, saw that his hostess was alone, and came to a seat near her.
“Are you not very lonely in your cottage?” Isabel asked.
“Sometimes, yes. But then I went there for the sake of loneliness.”
“It isn’t rude to ask you? You are doing literary work, no doubt?”
“No; I am doing no work at all.”
“But however do you spend your time in that dreadful place?”
“Dreadful? Does it show to you in that light?”
“Picturesque, I admit; but——”
She paused, with her head just on one side. “I can well understand the horror with which you regard such a mode of life,” said Kingcote, laughing. “But I have never had the habit of luxury, and, so long as I am free, nothing else matters much.”
“Free from what?”
“From sights and sounds which disgust me, from the contiguity of mean and hateful people, from suggestions which make life hideous; free to live with my fancies, and in the thoughts of men I love.”
Isabel regarded him