Stafford laughed.
"The horses are all right," he said. "They are only fresh, and want to
go."
He could not have driven slowly, for his mind, dwelling on the girl in
the well-worn habit, was electric.
"I have spared you, hitherto, any laudation of the scenery, my dear
Staff," said Howard, pleasantly, "but permit me to remark that it
really is very beautiful. Trust the great and powerful Sir Stephen to
choose the best nature and art can produce! What is this?"
"This" proved to be a newly built lodge which appeared on the left of
the road. Stafford slowed up, and a lodgekeeper came and flung open the
new and elaborately wrought iron gates.
"This the way to--to Sir Stephen's house?" asked Stafford.
The man touched his hat reverentially.
"Yes, sir," he replied. "Sir Stephen's arrived. Came an hour ago."
Stafford nodded, and drove on.
The road was certainly a new one, but it was lined with rhododendrons
and costly shrubs, and it wound and wound serpentine fashion through
shrubberies and miniature plantations which indicated not only
remarkably good taste, but vast expenditure. At intervals the trees had
been felled to permit a view of the lake, lying below, like a sapphire
glowing in the sunlight.
Presently they came in sight of the house. It was larger than it had
looked in the distance; a veritable palace. An architect had received
_carte-blanche_, and disporting himself right royally, had designed a
façade which it would be hard to beat: at any rate, in England.
Stafford eyed it rather grumpily. Most Englishmen dislike ostentation
and display; and to Stafford the place seemed garish and "loud." Howard
surveyed it with cynical admiration.
"A dream of Kubla Kahn--don't know whether I've got the name right:
poem of Coleridge's, you know--but of course you don't know; you don't
go in for poetry. Well I'm bound to admit that it's striking, not to
say beautiful," he went on, as the horses sprang up the last ascent and
rattled on in an impatient, high-spirited trot along the level road to
the terrace fronting the entrance.
As Stafford pulled up, a couple of grooms came forward; the hall
door--enamelled in peacock blue--opened and a butler and two footmen in
rich maroon livery appeared. They came down the white marble steps in
stately fashion and ranged themselves as if the ceremony were of vast
importance, and as Howard and Stafford got down they bowed with the air
of attendants receiving royalty.
As Stafford, flinging the reins to one of the grooms, got down, he
caught sight of a line of liveried servants in the hall, and he frowned
slightly.