you are Mr. Hurd’s son, are you not?” he said pleasantly. “Wonderful morning, isn’t it?”
Young Hurd stepped over the rose bushes. The two men stood side by side, something of a height, only that the better cut of Hurd’s clothes showed his figure to greater advantage.
“I’m sorry to say that I’ve come on rather a disagreeable errand,” the agent’s son began. “I’ve been talking to Mrs. Foulton about it.”
“Indeed?” Macheson remarked interrogatively.
“The fact is you seem to have rubbed up against our great lady here,” young Hurd continued. “She’s very down on these services you were going to hold, and she wants to see you out of the place.”
“I am sorry to hear this,” Macheson said—and once more waited.
“It isn’t a pleasant task,” Stephen continued, liking his errand less as he proceeded; “but I’ve had to tell Mrs. Foulton that—that, in short, Miss Thorpe-Hatton does not wish her tenants to accept you as a lodger.”
“Miss Thorpe-Hatton makes war on a wide scale,” Macheson remarked, smiling faintly.
“Well, after all, you see,” Hurd explained, “the whole place belongs to her, and there is no particular reason, is there, why she should tolerate any one in it of whom she disapproves?”
“None whatever,” Macheson assented gravely.
“I promised Mrs. Foulton I would speak to you,” Stephen continued, stepping backwards. “I’m sure, for her sake, you won’t make any trouble. Good morning!”
Macheson bowed slightly.
“Good morning!” he answered.
Stephen Hurd lingered even then upon the garden path. Somehow he was not satisfied with his interview—with his own position at the end of it. He had an uncomfortable sense of belittlement, of having played a small part in a not altogether worthy game. The indifference of the other’s manner nettled him. He tried a parting shaft.
“Mrs. Foulton said something about your having engaged the rooms for another week,” he said, turning back. “Of course, if you insist upon staying, it will place the woman in a very awkward position.”
Macheson had resumed his seat.
“I should not dream,” he said coolly, “of resisting—your mistress’ decree! I shall leave here in half an hour.”
Young Hurd walked angrily down the path and slammed the gate. The sense of having been worsted was strong upon him. He recognized his own limitations too accurately not to be aware that he had been in conflict with a stronger personality.
“D—— the fellow!” he muttered, as he cantered down the lane. “I wish he were out of the place.”
A genuine wish, and one which betrayed at least a glimmering of a prophetic instinct. In some dim way he seemed to understand, even before the first move on the board, that the coming of Victor Macheson to Thorpe was inimical to himself. He was conscious of his weakness, of a marked inferiority, and the consciousness was galling. The fellow had no right to be a gentleman, he told himself angrily—a gentleman and a missioner!
Macheson re-lit his pipe and called to Mrs. Foulton.
“Mrs. Foulton,” he said pleasantly, “I’ll have to go! Your great lady doesn’t like me on the estate. I dare say she’s right.”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry, sir,” Mrs. Foulton declared shamefacedly. “You’ve seen young Mr. Hurd?”
“He was kind enough to explain the situation to me,” Macheson answered. “I’m afraid I am rather a nuisance to everybody. If I am, it’s because they don’t quite understand!”
“I’m sure, sir,” Mrs. Foulton affirmed, “a nicer lodger no one ever had. And as for them services, and the Vicar objecting to them, I can’t see what harm they’d do! We’re none of us so good but we might be a bit better!”
“A very sound remark, Mrs. Foulton,” Macheson said, smiling. “And now you must make out my bill, please, and what about a few sandwiches? You could manage that? I’m going to play in a cricket match this afternoon.”
“Why you’ve just paid the bill, sir! There’s only breakfast, and the sandwiches you’re welcome to, and very sorry I am to part with you, sir.”
“Better luck another time, I hope, Mrs. Foulton,” he answered, smiling. “I must go upstairs and pack my bag. I shan’t forget your garden with its delicious flowers.”
“It’s a shame as you’ve got to leave it, sir,” Mrs. Foulton said heartily. “If my Richard were alive he’d never have let you go for all the Miss Thorpe-Hattons in the world. But John—he’s little more than a lad—he’d be frightened to death for fear of losing the farm, if I so much as said a word to him.”
Macheson laughed softly.
“John’s a good son,” he said. “Don’t you worry him.”
He went up to his tiny bedroom and changed his clothes for a suit of flannels. Then he packed his few belongings and walked out into the world. He lit a pipe and shouldered his portmanteau.
“There is a flavour of martyrdom about this affair,” he said to himself, as he strolled along, “which appeals to me. I don’t think that young man has any sense of humour.”
He paused every now and then to listen to the birds and admire the view. He had the air of one thoroughly enjoying his walk. Presently he turned off the main road, and wandered along a steep green lane, which was little more than a cart-track. Here he met no one. The country on either side was common land, sown with rocks and the poorest soil, picturesque, but almost impossible of cultivation. A few sheep were grazing upon the hills, but other sign of life there was none. Not a farmhouse—scarcely a keeper’s cottage in sight! It was a forgotten corner of a not unpopulous county—the farthest portion of a belt of primeval forest land, older than history itself. Macheson laughed softly as he reached the spot he had had in his mind, and threw his bag over the grey stone wall into the cool shade of a dense fragment of wood.
“So much,” he murmured softly, “for the lady of Thorpe!”
CHAPTER VI
CRICKET AND PHILOSOPHY
“
The instinct for games,” Wilhelmina remarked, “is one which I never possessed. Let us see whether we can learn something.”
In obedience to her gesture, the horses were checked, and the footman clambered down and stood at their heads. Deyes, from his somewhat uncomfortable back seat in the victoria, leaned forward,
