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The professor had come upon her originally when making investigations into "second sight," a faculty which she claimed to possess. By the way she was also an efficient parlor-maid. "Kent!" said Malling. "Do you know where he is staying?" "The address he left is the Tankerton Hotel, Tankerton, near Whitstable-on-Sea, sir." "Thank you, Agnes," said Malling.
He needed sympathy, he needed help. That was certain. But whether he could help him was more than doubtful, Malling thought. Perhaps, really, a doctor and the wonderful air from the mud flats of Tankerton! But here Malling found that a strong incredulity checked him. He did not believe that the rector would be restored by a doctor's advice and a visit to the sea.
Sargent's famous portrait of him. Forget it. Tankerton Hall is open to the public on Wednesdays. Go there, and in the dining-hall stand to study well Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of the eleventh Duke. Imagine a man some twenty years younger than he whom you there behold, but having some such features and some such bearing, and clad in just such robes.
"Ah," murmured Zuleika, with a smile of understanding. A shadow crossed her face, "Even so," she said, with some pique, "I don't suppose she had so very many adorers. She never went out into the world." "Tankerton," said the Duke drily, "is a large house, and my great-great-grandfather was the most hospitable of men.
Evidently, she feared she would pine away among those strange splendours, never be acclimatised, always be unworthy. He had thought to overwhelm her, and he had done his work too thoroughly. Now he must try to lighten the load he had imposed. Seating himself opposite to her, "You remember," he said, "that there is a dairy at Tankerton?" "A dairy? Oh yes." "Do you remember what it is called?"
*Pronounced as Tacton. Pronounced as Tavvle-Tacton. "Oh, I never go in motors," said Zuleika. "They make one look like nothing on earth, and like everybody else." "I myself," said the Duke, "use them little for that very reason. Are you interested in farming? At Tankerton there is a model farm which would at any rate amuse you, with its heifers and hens and pigs that are like so many big new toys.
I own about 340,000 acres. My town-residence is in St. James's Square. Tankerton, of which you may have seen photographs, is the chief of my country-seats. It is a Tudor house, set on the ridge of a valley. The valley, its park, is halved by a stream so narrow that the deer leap across. The gardens are estraded upon the slope. Round the house runs a wide paven terrace.
On the well-whitened doorstep he was confronted by a small boy in uniform bearing a telegram. "Duke of Dorset?" asked the small boy. Opening the envelope, the Duke saw that the message, with which was a prepaid form for reply, had been handed in at the Tankerton post-office.
But when she shook hands with Malling, her dark eyes seemed to say to him, "I was wrong." And he thought she looked humbled. "Could you come down stay with me Saturday till Monday all alone air delicious feel rather solitary glad of your company Marcus Harding Minors Tankerton Kent." Such was the telegram which Evelyn Malling was considering on the following Friday afternoon.
They stepped into the fly, and drove through the long street of Whitstable toward the outlying houses of Tankerton, scattered over grassy downs above a quiet, brown sea. "The air is splendid, certainly," observed Malling, drinking it in almost like a gourmet savoring a wonderful wine. "It must do me good. Don't you think so?" The question sounded anxious to Malling's ears.
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