CHAPTER VI
Stella heard a step on the threshold of the window, and turning to follow the direction of his eyes, saw the stalwart form of Lord Leycester standing in the window.
He was dressed in a suit of brown velveteen, with tight-fitting breeches and stockings, and carried a whip in his hand with which he barred the entrance against a couple of colleys, a huge mastiff, and a Skye terrier, the last barking with furious indignation at being kept outside.
Even at the moment of surprise, Stella was conscious of a sudden reluctant thrill of admiration for the graceful figure in the close-fitting velvet, and the handsome face with its dark eyes regarding her with a grave, respectful intenseness.
"Back dogs!" he said. "Go back, Vix!" then as they drew back, the big ones throwing themselves down on the path with patient obedience, he came into the room.
"I beg your pardon," he said, standing before Stella, his head bent. "I thought Mr. Etheridge was alone, or I should not have entered in this rough fashion."
As he spoke in the lane, so now it was no meaningless excuse, but with a tone of most reverential respect and proud humility, Stella, girl-like, noticed that he did not even venture to hold out his hand, and certainly Mr. Adelstone's self-satisfied smile and assured manner rose in her mind to contrast with this stately, high-bred humility.
"Do not apologize; it does not matter," she said, conscious that her face had grown crimson and that her eyes were downcast.
"Does it not? I am forgiven," and he held out his hand.
Stella had crossed her hands behind her as he entered with an instinctive desire to hide her bare arms and the flour, now she put out her hand a few inches and held it up with a smile.
"I can't," she said.
He looked at the white hand – at the white arm so beautifully molded that a sculptor would have sighed over it in despair at his inability to imitate it, and he still held out his hand.
"I do not mind the flour," he said, not as Mr. Adelstone would have said it, but simply, naturally.
Stella gave him one small taper finger and he took it and held it for a moment, his eyes smiling into hers; then he relinquished it, with not a word of commonplace compliment, but in silence, and turned to Mr. Etheridge.
"It is quite hopeless to ask you to forgive me for interrupting you I know, so I won't ask," he said, and there was in his voice, Stella noticed, a frank candor that was almost boyish but full of respect. At once it seemed to intimate that he had known and honored the old man since he, Leycester, was a boy.
"How are you, my lord?" said Mr. Etheridge, giving him his long, thin hand, but still keeping a hold, as it were, on his beloved easel. "Taking the dogs for a walk? Are they safe? Take care, Stella!"
For Stella was kneeling down in the midst of them, making friends with the huge mastiff, much to the jealous disgust of the others, who were literally crowding and pushing round her.
Lord Leycester looked round and was silent for a moment; his eyes fixed on the kneeling girl rather than on the dogs. Then he said, suddenly:
"They are quite safe," and then he added, for Stella's behalf, "they are quite safe, Miss Etheridge."
Stella turned her face toward him.
"I am not afraid. I should as soon think of biting them as they would dream of biting me, wouldn't you?" and she drew the mastiffs great head on to her lap, where it lay with his big eyes looking up at her piteously, as he licked her hand.
"Great Heavens, what a herd of them!" said Mr. Etheridge, who loved dogs – on canvas.
"I ought not to have brought them," said Lord Leycester, "but they will be quite quiet, and will do no harm, I assure you."
"I don't care if they don't bite my niece," said Mr. Etheridge.
"There is no fear of that," he said, quietly, "or I should not allow her to go near them. Please go on with your work, or I shall think I am a nuisance."
Mr. Etheridge waved him to a chair.
"Won't you sit down?" he said.
Lord Leycester shook his head.
"I have come to ask you a favor," he said.
Mr. Etheridge nodded.
"What is it?"
Lord Leycester laughed his rare laugh.
"I am trembling in my shoes," he said. "My tongue cleaves to my mouth with nervousness – "
The old painter glanced round at him, and his face relaxed into a smile as his eyes rested on the bold, handsome face and easy grace of the speaker.
"Yes, you look excessively frightened," he said. "What is it?"
It was noticeable that, excepting in his first greeting, the old man had not given him the benefit of his title; he had known him when Leycester had been a boy, running in and out of the cottage, always followed by a pack of dogs, and generally doing some mischief.
"I want you to do a little scene for me."
The old man groaned and looked at his picture firmly.
"You know the glade in the woods opening out opposite the small island. I want you to paint it."
"I am sorry," began the old man.
Lord Leycester went on, interrupting him gently:
"Have you seen it lately?" he said, and as he spoke Stella came into the room enticing the mastiff after her, with a handful of biscuits she had taken from the cheffonier. "It is very beautiful. It is the loveliest bit on the whole river. Right up from the stream it stretches green, with the young Spring leaves, to the sky above the hill. In the open space between the trees the primroses have made a golden carpet. I saw two kingfishers sailing up it as I stood and looked this morning, and as I looked I thought how well, how delightfully you would put it on canvas. Think! The bright green, the golden foreground, the early Summer sky to crown the whole, and reflected in the river running below."
Mr. Etheridge paused in his work and listened, and Stella, kneeling over the dog, listened too, with down-bent face, and wondered how the painter could stand so firm and obstinate.
To her the voice sounded like the sweetest music set to some poem. She saw the picture as he drew it, and in her heart the music of the words and voice found an echoing harmony.
Forgotten was the other man's warning; vain it would have been if he had repeated it at that moment. As well associate the darkness of a Winter's night with the bright gladness of a Summer's morning, as think of evil in connection with that noble face and musical voice.
Mr. Etheridge paused, but he shook his head.
"Very fine, very temptingly put; you are a master of words, Leycester; but I am immovable as a rock. Indeed your eloquence is wasted; it is not an impressionable man whom you address. I, James Etheridge, am on this picture. I am lost in my work, Lord Leycester."
"You will not do it?"
The old man smiled.
"I will not. To another man I should present an excuse, and mask my refusal. With you anything but a simple 'no' is of no avail."
Lord Leycester smiled and turned away.
"I am sorry," he said. "I meant it for a present to my sister Lilian."
Again Stella's eyes turned toward him. This man – infamous!
The old man put down his brush and turned upon him.
"Why didn't you say so at first?" he said.
Lord Leycester smiled.
"I wanted to see if you would do something for me – for myself," he said, with infinite naivete.
"You want it for Lady Lilian," said Mr. Etheridge. "I will do it, of course."
"I shan't say thank you," said Lord Leycester. "I have nothing to thank you for. She shall do that. When will you come – "
"Next week – next month – "
"Now at once," said Lord Leycester, stretching out his hand with a peculiar gesture which struck Stella by its infinite grace.
The old man groaned.
"I thought so! I thought so! It would always be now at once with you."
"The Spring won't wait for you! The green of those leaves is changing now, very slowly, but surely, as we speak; in a week it will be gone, and with it half – all the beauty will go too. You will come now, will you not?"
Mr. Etheridge looked round with comical dismay, then he laughed.
Lord Leycester's laugh chimed in, and he turned to Stella with the air of a man who has conquered and needs no more words.
"You see," said Mr. Etheridge, "that is the way I am led, like a pig to market, will I or will I not! And the sketch will take me, how long?"
"A few hours!"
"And there will be all the things to drag down – "
Lord Leicester strode to an old-fashioned cabinet.
"I will carry them, and yourself into the bargain if you like."
Then, with his hand upon the cabinet, he stopped short and turned to Stella.
"I beg your pardon! – I am always sinning. I forgot that there was now a presiding spirit. I am so used to taking liberties with your uncle's belongings; I know where all his paraphernalia is so well, that – "
Stella rose and smiled at them.
"Your knowledge is deeper than my uncle's, then," she said. "Do not beg pardon of me."
"May I?" he said, and he opened the cabinet and took out the sketching-pad and color-box; then, with some difficulty, he disentangled a folding camp-stool from a mass of artistic litter in a corner, and then prepared to depart.
Mr. Etheridge watched these proceedings with a rueful countenance, but seeing that resistance had long passed out of his power, he said:
"Where is my hat, Stella? I must go, I suppose."
Lord Leycester opened the door for her, and she went out, followed by all the dogs, and fetched the soft felt hat, holding it by the very tips of her fingers.
With a sigh, Mr. Etheridge dropped it on his head.
"Give me some of the things," he said; but Lord Leycester declined.
"Not one," he said, laughing. And Mr. Etheridge, without another word, walked out.
Lord Leycester stood looking at Stella, a wistful eagerness in his eyes.
"I have gone so far," he said, "that I am emboldened to venture still further. Will you come too?"
Stella started, and an eager light flashed for a moment in her eyes; then she held out her hands and laughed.
"I have to make a pudding," she said.
He looked at the white arms, and then at her, with an intensified eagerness.
"If you knew how beautiful the morning is – how grand the river looks – you would let the pudding go."
Stella shook her head.
He inclined his head, too highly bred to persist.
"I am so sorry," he said, simply. "I am sorry now that I have gained my way. I thought that you would have come."
Stella stood silent, and, with something like a sigh, put down the things and held out her hand; but as he took the finger which she gave him, his face brightened, and a light came into his eyes.
"Are you still firm?"
"I would not desert the pudding for anything, my lord," said Stella, naively.
At the "my lord," a slight shade covered his face, but it went again instantly, as he said:
"Well, then, will you come when the inevitable pudding is made? There," he said, eagerly, and still holding her hand he drew her to the window and pointed with his whip, "there's the place! It is not far – just across the meadows, and through the first gate. Do you see it?"
"Yes," said Stella, gently withdrawing her hand.
"And you will come?" he asked, his eyes fixed on hers with their intent earnestness.
At that instant the word – the odious word – "infamous" rang in her ears, and her face paled. He noticed the sudden pallor, and his eyes grew dark with earnest questioning.
"I see," he said, quietly, "you will not come!"
What was it that moved her? With a sudden impulse she raised her eyes and looked at him steadily.
"Yes, I will come!" she said.
He inclined his head without a word, called to the dogs, and passed out.
Stella stood for a moment looking after them; then she went into the kitchen – not laughing nor singing, but with a strange gravity; a strange feeling had got possession of her.
She felt as if she was laboring under some spell. "Charmed" is an often misused word, but it is the right word to describe the sensation. Was it his face or his voice that haunted her? As she stood absently looking down at the table, simple words, short and commonplace, which he had used rang in her ears with a new meaning.
Mrs. Penfold stood and regarded her in curious astonishment. She was getting used to Stella's quickly changing moods, but the sudden change bewildered her.
"Let me do it, Miss Stella," she pleaded, but Stella shook her head firmly; not by one inch would she swerve from her cause for all the beautiful voice and noble face.
In rapt silence she finished her work, then she went up-stairs and put on her hat and came down. As she passed out of the house and down the path, the mastiff leaped the gate and bounded toward her, and the next moment she saw Lord Leycester seated on a stile.
He dropped down and came toward her.
"How quick you have been," he said, "I thought a pudding was a mystery which demanded an immensity of time."
Stella looked up at him, her dark brows drawn to a straight line.
"You waited for me?" she said.
"No," he said, simply, "I came back. I did not like to think that you should come alone."
Stella was silent.
"Are you angry?" he asked, in a low voice.
Stella was silent for a moment, then she looked at him frankly.
"No," she said.
If she had but said "yes," and turned back! But the path, all beautiful with the bright coloring of Spring stretched before her, and she had no thought of turning back, no thought or suspicion of the dark and perilous land toward which she was traveling by his side.
Already the glamour of love was falling upon her like the soft mist of a Summer evening; blindly, passively she was moving toward the fate which the gods had prepared for her.
CHAPTER VII
Side by side they walked across the meadows; the larks rising before them and soaring up to the heavens with a burst of song; the river running in silvery silence to the sea; the green trees waving gently in the Summer breeze; and above them the long stretching gray masonry of Wyndward Hall.
Lord Leycester was strangely silent for some minutes since that "Are you angry?" and Stella, as she walked by his side, stooping now and again to gather a cowslip, glanced up at his face and wondered whether her uncle could be mistaken, whether they were not all deceived in thinking the quiet, graceful creature with the beautiful face and dreamy, almost womanly, soft eyes, wild and reckless, and desperate and altogether bad. She almost forgot how she had seen him on that first night of their meeting, with his whip upraised and the sudden fire of anger in his eyes.
Presently he spoke, so suddenly that Stella, who had been lost in her speculations respecting him, started guiltily:
"I have been wondering," he said, "how Mr. Etheridge takes the change which your presence must make in the cottage."
Stella looked up with surprise, then she smiled.
"He bears it with admirable resignation," she said, with that air of meek archness which her uncle found so amusing.
Lord Leycester looked down at her.
"That is a rebuke for the presumption of my remark?" he said.
"No," said Stella.
"I did not mean to be presumptuous. Think. Your uncle has lived the whole of his life alone, the life of a solitary, a hermit; suddenly there enters into that life a young and beau – a young girl, full of the spirit of youth and its aspirations. It must make a great change."
"As I said," says Stella, "he bears it with pious fortitude." Then she added, in a lower voice, "He is very good to me."
"He could not be otherwise," was the quiet response. "I mean that he could not be anything but good, gentle, and loving with any living thing. I have known him since I was a boy," he added. "He was always the same, always living a life of dreams. I wonder whether he takes you as a dream?"
"A very substantial and responsible one, then," said Stella, with her little laugh. "One that lasts through the daytime."
He looked at her with that strange intent look which she had learned that she could not meet.
"And you?" he said.
"I?" said Stella, though she knew what he meant.
He nodded.
"How do you like the change? – this still, quiet life in the Thames valley. Are you tired of it already? Will you pine for all the gayeties you have left?"
Stella looked up at him – his eyes were still fixed on hers.
"I have left no gayeties," she said. "I left a bare and horrid school that was as unlike home as the desert of Sahara is like this lovely meadow. How do I feel? As if I had been translated to Paradise – as if I, who was beginning to think that I was alone in the world I had no business to be in, had found some one friend to love – "
She paused, and he, glancing at the black waistband to her white dress, said, with the tenderest, most humble voice:
"I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me? – I did not know – "
And his voice broke.
Stella looked up at him with a smile shining through the unshed tears.
"How – why should you know? Yes, I was quite alone in the world. My father died a year ago."
"Forgive me," he murmured; and he laid his hand with a feather's weight on her arm. "I implore you to forgive me. It was cruel and thoughtless."
"No," said Stella. "How should you know?"
"If I had been anything better than an unthinking brute, I might have guessed."
There was a moment's pause, then Stella spoke.
"Yes, it is Paradise. I had no idea England was like this, they called it the land of fogs."
"You have not seen London on a November evening," he said, with a laugh. "Most foreigners come over to England and put up at some hotel at the west-end, and judge the whole land by the London sample – very few come even so far as this. You have not been to London?"
"I passed through it," said Stella, "that is all. But I heard a great deal about it last night," she added, with a smile.
"Yes!" he said, with great interest – "last night?"
"Yes, at Mrs. Hamilton's. She was kind enough to ask me to an evening party, and one of the guests took great pains to impress me with the importance and magnificence of London."
He looked at her.
"May I ask who she was?" he said.
"It was not a she, but a gentleman. It was Mr. Adelstone."
Lord Leycester thought a moment.
"Adelstone. Adelstone. I don't know him."
Before she was quite aware of it the retort slipped from her lips.
"He knows you."
He looked at her with a thoughtful smile.
"Does he? I don't remember him. Stay, yes, isn't he a relation of Mr. Fielding's?"
"His nephew," said Stella, and feeling the dark, penetrating eyes on her she blushed faintly. It annoyed her, and she struggled to suppress it, but the blush came and he saw it.
"I remember him now," he said; "a tall, thin dark man. A lawyer, I believe. Yes, I remember him. And he told you about London?"
"Yes," said Stella, and as she remembered the conversation of a few hours ago, her color deepened. "He is very amusing and well-informed, and he took pity on my ignorance in the kindest way. I was very grateful."
There was something in her tone that made him look at her questioningly.
"I think," he said, "your gratitude is easily earned."
"Oh, no," she retorted; "I am the most ungrateful of beings. Isn't that uncle sitting there?" she added, quickly, to change the subject.
He looked up.
"Yes, he is hard at work. I did not think I should have won him. It was my sister's name that worked the magic charm."
"He is fond of your sister," said Stella, thoughtfully.
His eyes were on her in an instant.
"He has spoken of her?" he said.
Stella could have bitten her tongue out for the slip.
"Yes," she said. "He – he told me about her – I asked him whose house it was upon the hills."
"Meaning the Hall?" he said, pointing with his whip.
"Yes, and he told me. I knew by the way he spoke of your sister that he was fond of her. Her name is Lilian, is it not?"
"Yes," he said, "Lilian," and the name left his lips with soft tenderness. "I think every one who knows her loves her. This picture is for her."
Stella glanced up at his face; anything less imperious at that moment it would be impossible to imagine.
"Lady Lilian is fond of pictures?" she said.
"Yes," he said; "she is devoted to art in all its forms. Yes, that little sketch will give her more pleasure than – than – I scarcely know what to say. What are women most fond of?"
Stella laughed.
"Diamonds, are they not?"
"Are you fond of them?" he said. "I think not."
"Why not?" she retorted. "Why should I not have the attributes of my sex? Yes, I am fond of diamonds. I am fond of everything that is beautiful and costly and rare. I remember once going to a ball at Florence."
He looked at her.
"Only to see it!" she exclaimed. "I was too young to be seen, and they took me in a gallery overlooking the great salon; and I watched the great ladies in their beautiful dresses and shining gems, and I thought that I would give all the world to be like one of them; and the thought spoiled my enjoyment. I remember coming away crying; you see it was so dark and solitary in the great gallery, and I felt so mean and insignificant." And she laughed.
He was listening with earnest interest. Every word she said had a charm for him; he had never met any girl – any woman – like her, so frank and open-minded. Listening to her was like looking into a crystal lake, in which everything is revealed and all is bright and pure.
"And are you wiser now?" he asked.
"Not one whit!" she replied. "I should like now, less than then, to be shut up in a dark gallery and look on at others enjoying themselves. Isn't that a confession of an envious and altogether wicked disposition?"
"Yes," he assented, with a strange smile barely escaping from under his tawny mustache. "I should be right in prophesying all sorts of bad endings to you."
As he spoke he opened the gate for her, driving the dogs back with a crack of his whip so that she might pass first – a small thing, but characteristic of him.
The painter looked up.
"Keep those dogs off my back, Leycester," he said. "Well, Stella, have you concocted your poison?"
Stella went and looked over his shoulder.
"Yes, uncle," she said.
"You have been long enough to make twenty indigestible compounds," he said, gazing at the view he was sketching.
Stella bent her head, to hide the blush which rose as she remembered how slowly they had walked across the meadows.
"How are you getting on?" said Lord Leycester.
The old man grunted.
"Pretty well; better than I shall now you have come to fidget about."
Lord Leycester laughed.
"A pretty plain hint that our room is desired more than our company, Miss Etheridge. Can we not vanish into space?"
Stella laughed and sank down on the grass.
"It is uncle's way of begging us to stay," she said.
Lord Leycester laughed, and sending the dogs off, flung himself down almost at her feet.
"Did I exaggerate?" he said, pointing his whip at the view.
"Not an atom," replied Stella. "It is beautiful – beautiful, and that is all that one can find to say."
"I wish you would be content to say it and not insist upon my painting it," replied Mr. Etheridge.
Lord Leycester sprang to his feet.
"That is the last straw. We will not remain to be abused, Miss Etheridge," he said.
Stella remained immovable. He came and stood over her, looking down at her with wistful eagerness in silence.
"What lovely woods," she said. "You were right; they are carpeted with primroses. We have none in our meadow."
"Would you like to go and get some?" he asked.
Stella turned her face up to him.
"Yes, but I don't care to swim across."
He smiled, and went down to the bank, unfastened a boat, and leaping into it, called to her.
Stella sprang to her feet with the impulsive delight of a girl at the sight of a boat, when she had expected nothing better than rushes.
"Is it a boat – really?" she exclaimed.
"Come and see," he said.
She went down to the water's edge and looked at it.
"How did it come there?" she asked.
"I pay a fairy to drop a boat from the skies whenever I want it."
"I see," said Stella, gravely.
He laughed.
"How did you think I came across? Did you think I swam?" and he arranged a cushion.
She laughed.
"I forgot that; how stupid of me."
"Will you step in?" he said.
Stella looked back at her uncle, and hesitated a moment.
"He will assure you that I shall not drown you," he said.
"I am not afraid – do you think I am afraid?" she said, scornfully.
"Yes, I think that at this moment you are trembling with nervousness and dread."
She put her foot – he could not help seeing how small and shapely it was – on the gunwale, and he held out his hand and took hers; it was well he did so, for the boat was only a small, lightly built gig, and her sudden movement had made it rock.
As it was, she staggered slightly, and he had to take her by the arm. So, with one hand grasping her hand and the other her arm, he held her for a moment – for longer than a moment. Then he placed her on the cushion, and seating himself, took up the sculls and pushed off.
Stella leant back, and of course dropped one hand in the water. Not one woman out of twenty who ever sat in a boat can resist that impulse to have closer communion with the water; and he pulled slowly across the stream.
The sun shone full upon them, making their way a path of rippling gold, and turning Stella's hair into a rich brown.
Little wonder that, as he sat opposite her, his eyes should rest on her face, and less that, thus resting, its exquisite beauty and freshness and purity should sink into the soul of him to whom beauty was the one thing worth living for.
Unconscious of his rapt gaze, Stella leant back, her eyes fixed on the water, her whole attention absorbed by its musical ripple as it ran through her fingers.
In silence he pulled the sculls, slowly and noiselessly; he would not have spoken and broken the spell for worlds. Before him, as he looked upon her, rose the picture of which he had spoken to his sister last night.
"But more beautiful," he mused – "more beautiful! How lost she is! She has forgotten me – forgotten everything. Oh, Heaven! if one were to waken her into love!"
For an instant, at the thought, the color came into his face and the fire to his eyes; then a half guilty, half repentful feeling struck through him.
"No, it would be cruel – cruel: and yet to see the azure light shining in those eyes – to see those lips half parted with the breath of a great passion, would be worth – what? It would make amends for all that a man might suffer, though he died the next moment, if those eyes smiled, if those lips were upturned, for love of him!"
So lost were they that the touching of the boat and the bank made them start.
"So soon," murmured Stella. "How beautiful it is! I think I was dreaming."
"And I know that I was," he said, with a subtle significance, as he rose and held out his hand. But Stella sprang lightly on shore without accepting it. He tied up the boat and followed her; she was already on her knee, picking the yellow primroses.
Without a word, he followed her example. Sometimes they were so near together that she could feel his breath stirring her hair – so near that their hands almost met.
At last she sank on to the mossy ground with a laugh, and, pointing to her hat, which was full of the spring earth-stars, said laughingly:
"What ruthless pillage! Do not pick any more; it is wanton waste!"
"Are you sure you have plenty?" he said. "Why hesitate when there are such millions?"
"No, no more!" she said. "I feel guilty already!"
He glanced at the handful he had gathered, and she saw the glance and laughed.
"You do not know what to do with those you have, and still want more. See, you must tie them in bundles.
"Show me," he said, and he threw himself down beside her.
She gathered them up into bundles, and tied them with a long stem of fern, and he tried to do the same, but his hands, white and slender as they were, were not so deft as hers, and he held the huge bundle to her.
"You must tie it," he said.
She laughed and put the fern round, but it broke, and the primroses fell in a golden shower over their hands. They both made a grasp at them, and their hands met.
For a moment Stella laughed, then the laugh died away, for he still held her hand, and the warmth of his grasp seemed stealing upward to her heart. With something like an effort she drew her hand away, and sprang to her feet.
"I – I must go," she said. "Uncle will wonder where I have gone," and she looked down at the water with almost frightened eagerness.
"He will know you are here, quite safe," he said. "Wait, do not go this moment. Up there, above our heads, we can see the river stretching away for miles. It is not a step; will you come?"
She hesitated a moment, then she turned and walked beside him between the trees.
A step or two, as he said, and they reached a sort of plateau, crowned by a moss-grown rock, in which some rough steps were hewn. He sprang up the steps and reached the top, then bent down and held out his hand.
Stella hesitated a moment.
"It will repay your trouble; come," he said, and she put her hand in his and her foot on the first step, and he drew her up beside him.
"Look!" he said.
An exclamation of delight broke from Stella's lips.
"You are not sorry you came?"
"I did not think it would be so lovely," she said.
He stood beside her, not looking at the view, but at her dark eyes dilating with dreamy rapture – at her half-parted lips, and the sweet, clear-cut profile presented to him.
She turned suddenly, and to hide the look of admiration he raised his hand and pointed out the objects in the view.
"And what is that little house there?" asked Stella.
"That is one of the lodges," he said.
"One of the lodges – one of your own lodges, you mean?" she asked.
He nodded lightly, "Yes."
"And all this between here and that lodge belongs to you?"
"No, not an inch," he said, laughing. "To my father."
"It is a great deal," she said.
"Too much for one man, you think?" he said, with a smile. "A great many other people think so too. I don't know what you would think if you knew how much we Wyndwards have managed at one time or the other to lay our acquiring grasp on. This is one of our smallest estates," he said, simply.
Stella looked at the view dreamily.
"One of the smallest? Yes, I have heard that you are very rich. It must be very nice."
"I don't know," he said. "You see one cannot tell until one has been poor. I don't think there is anything in it. I don't think one is any the happier. There is always something left to long for."