United States or Uruguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Towards these flowers a bulbous green caterpillar was wriggling, at the very edge of the table, and of the picture. The result of Westray's meditations was that the fern-case and the flower-picture stood entirely condemned. He would approach Miss Joliffe at the earliest opportunity about their removal.
Lord Blandamer had visited Bellevue Lodge as it were in his own right; he had definitely abandoned the pretence of coming to see Westray; he had been drinking tea with Miss Joliffe; he had spent an hour in the kitchen with Miss Joliffe and Anastasia. It could only mean one thing, and Westray's resolution was taken.
They had since met not unfrequently, and the year which had elapsed had sufficiently blunted the edge of Westray's disappointment, to enable him to talk of the matter with equanimity.
Perhaps you know Lord Blandamer?" he added venturously; yet with a suggestion that even the sodality of first-class travelling was not in itself a passport to so distinguished an acquaintance. The mention of Lord Blandamer's name gave a galvanic shock to Westray's flagging attention. "Oh yes," he said, "I know Lord Blandamer."
Anastasia hesitated again for an instant. If there were no gentlemen-tramps, perhaps there were gentlemen-burglars, and she hastily made a mental inventory of Mr Westray's belongings, but could think of nothing among them likely to act as an incentive to crime. Still she would not venture to show a strange man to the top of the house, when there was no one at home but herself.
But Westray's excitement was cold-waterproof, and he read the letter aloud with much jubilation. "Well," said the organist, "I don't see much in it; seven thousand pounds is nothing to him. When we have done all that we ought to do, we are unprofitable servants." "It isn't only seven thousand pounds; don't you see he gives carte-blanche for repairs in general?
He went up to Westray's room to ask if he might eat his dinner upstairs, but he found that the architect had gone to London, and would not be back till the evening train; so he was thrown upon his own resources. He ate little, and by the end of the meal depression had so far got the better of him, that he found himself standing before a well-known cupboard.
He took the crumpled papers from his pocket, and held them out without looking up. Then silence fell on them again, and Westray's heart stood still; till after a second that seemed an eternity Lord Blandamer took the papers with a short "I thank you," and walked a little way further, to the end of the gallery.
Westray's haggard air had not escaped his host's notice. The architect looked as if he had spent the night in a haunted room, and Lord Blandamer was not surprised, knowing that the other's scruples had died hard, and were not likely to lie quiet in their graves.
It seemed to her, indeed, that, considering he was an architect, Mr Westray's taste was strangely at fault; but she extended to him all possible forbearance, in view of his kindly manner and of his intention to remain with her. Then the architect approached the removal of the flower-painting.
Word Of The Day