The Lady Paramount | Page 7

asked.
"No," said Anthony, promptly, with decision. "I 'll set out for the house;
and you (unless your habits have strangely altered) will frisk and
gambol round about me. Come on."
And taking Adrian's arm, he led the way, amid the summer throng of
delicate scents and sounds, under the opulent old trees, over the
gold-green velvet of the turf, on which leaves and branches were
stencilled by the sun, as in an elaborate design for lace, towards a house
that was rather famous in the neighbourhood--I was on the point of
saying for its beauty: but are things ever famous in English
neighbourhoods for their mere beauty?--for its quaintness, and in some
measure too, perhaps, for its history:--Craford Old Manor, a red-brick
Tudor house, low, and, in the rectangular style of such houses,
rambling; with a paved inner court, and countless tall chimneys, like
minarets; with a secret chapel and a priests' "hiding-hole," for the
Crafords were one of those old Catholic families whose boast it is that
they "have never lost the Faith"; with a walled formal garden, and a
terrace, and a sun-dial; with close-cropped bordures of box, and yews
clipped to fantastic patterns: the house so placed withal, that, while its
north front faced the park, its south front, ivy-covered, looked over a
bright lawn and bright parterres of flowers, down upon the long green
levels of Rowland Marshes, and away to the blue sea beyond,--the blue
sea, the white cliffs, the yellow sands.
Anthony and Adrian, arm in arm, sauntered on without speaking, till
they attained the crest of a sweeping bit of upland, and the house and
the sea came in view. Here they halted, and stood for a minute in

contemplation of the prospect.
"The sea," said Adrian, disengaging his arm, that he might be free to
use it as a pointer, and then pointing with it, "the sea has put on her
bluest frock, to honour your return. And behold, decked in the hues of
Iris, that gallant procession of cliffs, like an army with banners,
zigzagging up from the world's rim, to bid you welcome. Oh, you were
clearly not unexpected. If no smoke rises from yonder chimneys,--if
your ancestral chimney-stone is cold,--that's merely because, despite
the season, we 're having a spell of warmish weather, and we 've let the
fires go out. 'T is June. Town 's full; country 's depopulated. In
Piccadilly, I gather from the public prints, vehicular traffic is painfully
congested. Meanwhile, I 've a grand piece of news for your private ear.
Guess a wee bit what it is."
"Oh, I 'm no good at guessing," said Anthony, with languor, as they
resumed their walk.
"Well--what will you give me, then, if I 'll blurt it out?" asked Adrian,
shuffling along sidewise, so that he might face his companion.
"My undivided attention--provided you blurt it briefly," Anthony
promised.
"Oh, come," Adrian urged, swaying his head and shoulders. "Betray a
little curiosity, at least."
"Curiosity is a vice I was taught in my youth to suppress," said
Anthony.
"A murrain on your youth," cried Adrian, testily. "However, since there
's no quieting you otherwise, I suppose, for the sake of peace, I 'd best
tell you, and have done with it. Well, then,"--he stood off, to watch the
effect of his announcement,--"Craford's Folly is let."
"Ah?" said Anthony, with no sign of emotion.
Adrian's face fell.

"Was there ever such inhumanity?" he mourned. "I tell him that--thanks
to my supernatural diligence in his affairs--his own particular millstone
is lifted from his neck. I tell him that a great white elephant of a house,
which for years has been eating its head off, and keeping him poor, is at
last--by my supernatural diligence--converted into an actual source of
revenue. And 'Ah?' is all he says, as if it did n't concern him. Blow,
blow, thou winter wind,--thou art not so unkind as Man's ingratitude."
"Silence," Anthony mentioned, "is the perfectest herald of joy."
"Pish, tush," said Adrian. "A fico for the phrase. I 'll bet a shilling, all
the same,"--and he scanned Anthony's countenance
apprehensively,--"that you 'll be wanting money?"
"It's considered rather low," Anthony generalised, "to offer a bet on
what you have every ground for regarding as a certainty."
"A certainty?" groaned Adrian. He tossed his plump arms heavenwards.
"There it is! He 's wanting money."
And his voice broke, in something like a sob.
"Do you know," he asked, "how many pounds sterling you 've had the
spending of during the past twelvemonth? Do you know how many
times your poor long-suffering bankers have written to me, with tears
in their eyes, to complain that your account was overdrawn, and would
I be such a dear as to set it right? No? You don't? I could