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Anthony laughed too. "You are conscious of your power," he said. "Yes," she admitted. "So you will take Mr. Willes?" "You have said you wished it." And then, for a while, neither spoke, but I fancy their eyes carried on the conversation. It was nearly time to dress for dinner when Anthony returned to Craford Old Manor.
Our melancholic young squire of Craford was not a man much given to quick-born enthusiasms; but now, as he put down his pen, and her face shone before him for the twentieth time this sunny afternoon, now all at once, "By Jove, she's unique," he cried out. "I have never seen a woman to touch her. If she is Madame Torrebianca " But there he checked himself. "Of course she is n't.
"If you insist upon it, I suppose I 'll have to," he grudgingly consented. "But a journey!" he sighed. "Ah, well. Where to?" Her eyes gleamed, maliciously. "To a very pleasant place," she said. "The journey is a pious pilgrimage." "Craford, just now, is the only pleasant place on the face of the earth," vowed he. "A pious pilgrimage? Where to?"
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.
"I 'm awfully sorry," repeated Adrian. "But Craford and I are as distinct as night and morning. Craford has gone out for a solitary walk. My name is Willes. Craford and I are travelling together." "Oh, I see," cried Franco; and slapping his thigh, "Ho, ho, ho," he laughed. "Ho, ho, ho," laughed Baldo. "We were jolly well sold." "We ho, ho we got the wrong sow by the ear," laughed Franco.
She spoke in bated accents, and made a grave face, as if to miss tea were to miss a function sacrosanct. Anthony laughed, and they turned back. "It's a bit of a coincidence," he remarked presently, "that, coming from Sampaolo, you should just have chanced to take a house at Craford." "Nothing could be simpler," said Susanna.
In the first place, he liked her appearance, he liked her brisk, frank manner; and then, is n't it always well to have a friend near the rose? The result was that when she and Susanna were alone, Miss Sandus succinctly remarked, "My dear, your cousin is a trump." The shadows were long, as he and Adrian strolled back to Craford Old Manor.
"As you must perceive, the history of Sampaolo is a matter I have studied somewhat profoundly. How could I forget so salient a fact as that? The name that he assumed," she said, her air elaborately detached, "was Craford." But Anthony evinced not the slightest sign of a sensation. "Craford?" he repeated. "Ah, indeed? That is a good name, a good old south-country Saxon name."
She spurned the imputation. "There are Rosina and Serafino; and at the end of my journey I shall have Miss Sandus. You remember that nice Miss Sandus?" she asked, smiling up at him. "She is my fellow-conspirator. We arranged it all before she went away last autumn. I 'm to go to her house in London, and she will go with me to Craford. She 's frantically interested about my cousin.
Square and spacious it was certainly, perhaps a hackneyed type none the less: the ceiling and the walls panelled in dark well-polished oak; the floor a pavement of broad stone flags, covered for the most part now by a faded Turkey carpet; the narrow windows, small-paned and leaded, set in deep stone embrasures; a vast fireplace jutting across a corner, the Craford arms emblazoned in the chimney-piece above; and a wide oak staircase leading to the upper storey.
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