“Vested interests,” said Diana, “slum landlordism and the building trades are too strong for that.”

Adrian added: “And there’s the cash required.”

“Why! that’s all easy. Your Parliament could take what powers they need for a big national thing like that; and what’s wrong with a Loan, anyway?—the money would come back; it’s not like a Loan for war, all shot away in powder. What do you pay in doles?”

No one could answer him.

“I judge the saving would pay the interest on a pretty big Loan.”

“It just, in fact,” said Dinny, sweetly, “needs simple faith. That’s where you Americans beat us, Professor Hallorsen.”

A look slid over the American’s face as though he were saying: ‘Cats!’

“Well, we certainly had a pieful of simple faith when we came over to fight in France. But we ate the lot. It’ll be the home fires we keep burning next time.”

“Was your faith so simple even last time?”

“I fear it was, Miss Cherrell. Not one in twenty of us ever believed the Germans could get a cinch on us away over there.”

“I sit rebuked, Professor.”

“Why! Not at all! You judge America by Europe.”

“There was Belgium, Professor,” said Diana; “even we had some simple faith at the start.”

“Pardon me, but did the case of Belgium really move you, Ma’am?”

Adrian was drawing circles with a fork; he looked up.

“Speaking for onself, yes. I don’t suppose it made any difference to the Army people, Navy people, big business people, or even to a large section of Society, political and otherwise. They all knew that if war came we were practically committed to France. But to simple folk like myself and some two-thirds of the population not in the know, to the working classes, in fact, generally, it made all the difference. It was like seeing What’s-his-name—the Man Mountain—advancing on the smallest Flyweight in the ring, who was standing firm and squaring up like a man.”

“Mighty well put, Mr. Curator.”

Dinny flushed. Was there generosity in this man? Then, as if conscious of treachery to Hubert, she said acidly:

“I’ve read that the sight even ruffled Roosevelt.”

“It ruffled quite a few of us, Miss Cherrell; but we’re a long way off over there, and things have to be near before they stir the imagination.”

“Yes, and after all, as you said just now, you did come in at the end.”

Hallorsen looked fixedly at her ingenuous face, bowed and was silent.

Bet when, at the end of that peculiar evening, he was saying good-night, he added:

“I fear you’ve gotten a grouch against me, Miss Cherrell.”

Dinny smiled, without reply.

“All the same, I hope I may meet you again.”

“Oh! But why?”

“Well, I kind of have the feeling that I might change the view you have of me.”

“I am very fond of my brother, Professor Hallorsen.”

“I still think I’ve more against your brother than he has against me.”

“I hope you may be right before long.”

“That sounds like trouble.”

Dinny tilted her head.

She went up to bed, biting her lip with vexation. She had neither charmed nor assailed the enemy; and instead of clean-cut animosity, she had confused feelings about him.

His inches gave him a disconcerting domination. ‘He’s like those creatures in hairy trousers on the films,’ she thought, ‘carrying off the semi-distressed cow-girls—looks at one as if he thought one was on his pillion.’ Primitive Force in swallow-tails and a white waistcoat! A strong but not a silent man.

Her room looked over the street, and from her window she could see the plane trees on the Embankment, the river, and the wide expanse of starry night.

“Perhaps,” she said to herself, aloud, “you won’t leave England so soon as you thought.”

“Can I come in?”

She turned to see Diana in the doorway.

“Well, Dinny, what think you of our friend the enemy?”

“Tom Mix, mixed with the Giant that Jack killed.”

“Adrian likes him.”

“Uncle Adrian lives too much with bones. The sight of red blood goes to his head.”

“Yes; this is the sort of ‘he-man’ women are supposed to fall for. But you behaved well, Dinny, though your eyes looked very green at first.”

“They feel greener now I’ve let him go without a scratch.”

“Never mind! You’ll have other chances. Adrian’s got him asked to Lippinghall tomorrow.”

“What!”

“You’ve only to embroil him with Saxenden there, and Hubert’s trick is done. Adrian didn’t tell you, for fear your joy might show itself. The Professor wants to sample British ‘hunting.’ The poor man doesn’t in the least realise that he’s walking into a lioness’s den. Your Aunt Em will be delicious with him.”

“Hallorsen!” murmured Dinny: “He must have Scandinavian blood.”

“He says his mother was old New England, but married out of the direct succession. Wyoming’s his State. Delightful word, Wyoming.”

“‘The great open spaces.’ What is there about the expression ‘he-man’ which infuriates me, Diana?”

“Well, it’s like being in a room with a burst of sunflowers. But ‘he-men’ aren’t confined to the great open spaces; you’ll find Saxenden one.”

“Really!”

“Yes. Good-night, my dear. And may no ‘he-men’ come to you in dreams!”

When Dinny had disrobed, she again took out the diary and re-read a passage she had turned down. It ran thus:

That essential private irregularity, room by room, which differentiates the old English from every other variety of country house, was patent at Lippinghall Manor. People went into rooms as if they meant to stay there, and while there inhaled an atmosphere and fitted into garniture different from those in any of the other rooms; nor did they feel that they must leave the room as they found it, if indeed they knew how that was. Fine old furniture stood in careless partnership with fill-up stuff acquired for the purposes of use or ease. Portraits of ancestors, dark or yellow, confronted Dutch or French landscapes still more yellow or dark, with here and there delightful old prints, and miniatures not without charm. In two rooms at least were beautiful old fireplaces, defiled by the comfort of a fender which could be sat on. Staircases appeared unexpectedly in the dark. The position of a bedroom was learned with difficulty and soon forgotten. In it would be, perhaps, a priceless old chestnut wood wardrobe and a four-poster bed of an excellent period; a window-seat with cushions, and some French prints. To it would be conjoined a small room with narrow bed; and bathroom that might or might not need a stroll, but would have salts in it. One of the Monts had been an Admiral; queer old charts, therefore, with dragons lashing the seas, lurked in odd corners of the corridors; one of the Monts, Sir Lawrence’s grandfather, seventh baronet, had been a racing man, and the anatomy of the thoroughbred horse, and jockey of his period (1860–1883) could be studied on the walls. The sixth baronet, who, being in politics, had lived longer than the rest, had left imprints of the earlier Victorian period, his wife and daughters in crinolines, himself in whiskers. The outside of the house was Carolean, tempered here and there by Georgian, and even Victorian fragments where the sixth baronet had given way to his feeling for improvement. The only thing definitely modern was the plumbing.