That evening, in his bath, a large wooden structure like a giant’s coffin, Jimmy reviewed the day, a delightful day. In the morning he had been taken round the castle; it was not so large as it seemed from outside—it had to be smaller, the walls were so thick. And there were, of course, a great many rooms he wasn’t shown, attics, cellars, and dungeons. One dungeon he had seen: but he felt sure that in a fortress of such pretensions there must be more than one. He couldn’t quite get the “lie” of the place at present; he had his own way of finding his room, but he knew it wasn’t the shortest way. The hall, which was like a Clapham Junction to the castle’s topographical system, still confused him. He knew the way out, because there was only one way, across a modernized drawbridge, and that made it simpler. He had crossed it to get at the woods below the castle, where he had spent the afternoon, hunting for caterpillars. ‘They’ had really left him alone—even severely alone! Neither of Rollo’s wife nor of his brother was there yet any sigh. But I shall see them at dinner, he thought, wrapping himself in an immense bath-towel.

The moment he saw Randolph Verdew, standing pensive in the drawing-room, he knew he would like him. He was an etherealized version of Rollo, taller and slighter. His hair was sprinkled with grey and he stooped a little. His cloudy blue eyes met Jimmy’s with extraordinary frankness as he held out his hand and apologized for his previous non-appearance.

‘It is delightful to have you here,’ he added. ‘You are a naturalist, I believe?’

His manner was formal but charming, infinitely reassuring.

‘I am an entomologist,’ said Jimmy, smiling.

‘Ah, I love to watch the butterflies fluttering about the flowers—and the moths, too, those big heavy fellows that come in of an evening and knock themselves about against the lights. I have often had to put as many as ten out of the windows, and back they come—the deluded creatures. “What a pity that their larvae are harmful and in some cases have to be destroyed! But I expect you prefer to observe the rarer insects?’

‘If I can find them,’ said Jimmy.

I’m sure I hope you will,’ said Randolph, with much feeling. ‘You must get Rollo to help you.’

‘Oh,’ said Jimmy, ‘Rollo——’

‘I hope you don’t think Rollo indifferent to nature?’ asked his brother, with distress in his voice and an engaging simplicity of manner. ‘He has had rather a difficult life, as I expect you know. His affairs have kept him a great deal in towns, and he has had little leisure—very little leisure.’

‘He must find it restful here,’ remarked Jimmy, again with the sense of being more tactful than truthful.

‘I’m sure I hope he does. Rollo is a dear fellow; I wish he came here oftener. Unfortunately his wife does not care for the country, and Rollo himself is very much tied by his new employment—the motor business.’

‘Hasn’t he been with Scorcher and Speedwell long?’

‘Oh no: poor Rollo, he is always trying his hand at something new. He ought to have been born a rich man instead of me.’ Randolph spread his hands out with a gesture of helplessness. ‘He could have done so much, whereas I—ah, here he comes. We were talking about you, Rollo.’

‘No scandal, I hope; no hitting a man when he’s down?’

‘Indeed no. We were saying we hoped you would soon come into a fortune.’

‘Where do you think it’s coming from?’ demanded Rollo, screwing up his eyes as though the smoke from his cigarette had made them smart.

‘Perhaps Vera could tell us,’ rejoined Randolph mildly, making his way to the table, though his brother’s cigarette was still unfinished. ‘How is she, Rollo? I hoped she would feel sufficiently restored to make a fourth with us this evening.’

‘Still moping,’ said her husband. ‘Don’t waste your pity on her. She’ll be all right to-morrow.’

They sat down to dinner.

The next day, or it might have been the day after, Jimmy was coming home to tea from the woods below the castle. On either side of the path was a hayfield. They were mowing the hay. The mower was a new one, painted bright blue; the horse tossed its head up and down; the placid afternoon air was alive with country sounds, whirring, shouts, and clumping footfalls. The scene was full of an energy and gentleness that refreshed the heart. Jimmy reached the white iron fence that divided the plain from the castle mound, and, with a sigh, set his feet upon the zigzag path. For though the hill was only a couple of hundred feet high at most, the climb called for an effort he was never quite prepared to make. He was tramping with lowered head, conscious of each step, when a voice hailed him.

‘Mr. Rintoul!’

It was a foreign voice, the i’s pronounced like e’s. He looked up and saw a woman, rather short and dark, watching him from the path above.

‘You see I have come down to meet you,’ she said, advancing with short, brisk, but careful and unpractised steps. And she added, as he still continued to stare at her: ‘Don’t you know? I am Mrs. Verdew.’

By this time she was at his side.

‘How could I know?’ he asked, laughing and shaking the hand she was already holding out to him. All her gestures seemed to be quick and unpremeditated.

‘Let us sit here,’ she said, and almost before she had spoken she was sitting, and had made him sit, on the wooden bench beside them. ‘I am tired from walking downhill; you will be tired by walking uphill; therefore we both need a rest.’

She decided it all so quickly that Jimmy, whose nature had a streak of obstinacy, wondered if he was really so tired after all.

‘And who should I have been, who could I have been, but Mrs. Verdew?’ she demanded challengingly.

Jimmy saw that an answer was expected, but couldn’t think of anyone who Mrs. Verdew might have been.

‘I don’t know,’ he said feebly.

‘Of course you don’t, silly,’ said Mrs. Verdew. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘I can’t remember. Two or three days, I think,’ said Jimmy, who disliked being nailed down to a definite fact.

‘Two or three days? Listen to the man, how vague he is!’ commented Mrs. Verdew, with a gesture of impatience apostrophizing the horizon. ‘Well, whether it’s three days or only two, you must have learnt one thing—that no one enters these premises without leave.’

‘Premises?’ murmured Jimmy.

‘Hillside, garden, grounds, premises,’ repeated Mrs. Verdew. ‘How slow you are! But so are all Englishmen.’

‘I don’t think Rollo is slow,’ remarked Jimmy, hoping to carry the war into her country.

‘Sometimes too slow, sometimes too fast, never the right pace,’ pronounced his wife. ‘Rollo misdirects his life.’

‘He married you,’ said Jimmy gently.

Mrs. Verdew gave him a quick look. ‘That was partly because I wanted him to. But only just now, for instance, he has been foolish.’

‘Do you mean he was foolish to come here?’

‘I didn’t mean that. Though I hate the place, and he does no good here.’

‘What good could he do?’ asked Jimmy, who was staring vacantly at the sky. ‘Except, perhaps, help his brother to look after—to look after——’

‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs. Verdew. ‘Randolph doesn’t need any help, and if he did he wouldn’t let Rollo help him. He wouldn’t even have him made a director of the coal-mine!’

‘What coal-mine?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Randolph’s. You don’t mean to say you didn’t know he had a coal-mine? One has to tell you everything!’

‘I like you to tell me things!’ protested Jimmy.

‘As you don’t seem to find out anything for yourself, I suppose I must. Well, then: Randolph has a coal-mine, he is very rich, and he spends his money on nothing but charitable societies for contradicting the laws of nature. And he won’t give Rollo a penny—not a penny though he is his only brother, his one near relation in the world! He won’t even help him to get a job!’