Stafford smiled rather absently; he was scarcely listening; he was so
accustomed to Howard's cynical diatribes that more often than not they
made no more impression on him than water on a duck's back. Besides, he
was thinking of Ida Heron, the girl whose strange history he had just
been listening to.
There was silence for a minute or two, and while they stood leaning
against the door-way two men came out of another door in the inn and
stood talking. They were commercial travellers, and they were enjoying
their pipes--of extremely strong tobacco--after a hard day's work.
Presently one of them said: "Seen that place of Sir Stephen Orme's on the hill? Splendacious, isn't
it? Must have cost a small fortune. I wonder what the old man's game
is."
The other man shook his head, and laughed.
"Of course he's up to some game. He wouldn't lay out all that money for
nothing, millionaire as he is. He's always got something up his sleeve.
Perhaps he's going to entertain some big swell he wants to get into his
net, or some of the foreign princes he's hand-in-glove with. You never
know what Sir Stephen Orme's up to. Perhaps he's going to stand for the
county; if so, he's bound to get in. He always succeeds, or, if he
don't, you don't hear of his failures. He's the sort of man Disraeli
used to write about in his novels. One of the chaps who'd go through
fire and water to get their ends; yes, and blood too, if it's
necessary. There's been some queer stories told about him; they say he
sticks at nothing. Look at that last Turkish concession."
The speaker and his companion sauntered down the road. Stafford and
Howard had heard every word; but Stafford looked straight before him,
and made no sign, and Howard yawned as if he had not heard a syllable.
"Do you raise any objection to my going to my little bed, Stafford?" he
asked. "I suppose, having done nothing more than clamber about a river,
get wet through, and tramp a dozen miles over hills, you do not feel
tired."
"No," said Stafford, "I don't feel like turning in just yet.
Good-night, old man."
When Howard had gone Stafford exchanged his dress-coat for a
shooting-jacket, and with the little wallet in his pocket and his pipe
in his mouth, he strode up the road. As he said, he did not feel
tired--it was difficult for Stafford, with his athletic frame and
perfect muscular system, to get tired under any circumstances--the
night was one of the loveliest he had ever seen, and it seemed wicked
to waste it by going to bed, so he walked on, all unconsciously going
in the direction of Heron Hall. The remarks about his father which had
fallen from the bagman, stuck to him for a time like a burr: it isn't
pleasant to hear your father described as a kind of charlatan and
trickster, and Stafford would have liked to have collared the man and
knocked an apology out of him; but there are certain disadvantages
attached to the position of gentlemen, and one of them is that you have
to pretend to be deaf to speeches that were not intended for your ears;
so Stafford could not bash the bagman for having spoken disrespectfully
of the great Sir Stephen Orme.