“The first earl of my family,” he added, “began with less than that.”
“And the present one ends with winning as much in a single race!”
“Well, this time, yes, but not always.
My last venture at the Derby cost me almost twice that.”
They were sitting on the deck of the houseboat, waiting for tea to be served.
A punt, filled with idlers, went by, and he asked Berenice if she had made use of either the canoes or punts in the houseboat.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“Mr. Tavistock and I, and also Colonel Hawkesberry, who lives over near Wimbledon, have explored the river to Windsor in that direction and far beyond Marlow in this.
We’ve talked of going as far as Oxford.”
“In a punt?” queried Stane.
“Well, two or three of them.
Colonel Hawkesberry has been talking of arranging a party.”
“The dear old colonel!
So you know him?
We knew each other as boys.
But I haven’t seen him in a year.
He’s been in India, I believe.”
“Yes, so he told me.”
“But there’s far more interesting country around Tregasal,” said Stane, ignoring Hawkesberry and Tavistock.
“We have the sea on all sides, and the rockiest coast in England, quite impressive; besides moors and fens and tin and copper mines and old churches, if you care for them.
And the climate is delightful, particularly now.
I do wish you and your mother would come to Tregasal.
There’s quite a good small harbor there, where I keep my yacht.
We could sail over to the Scilly Isles; they’re only about thirty miles away.”
“Why, how delightful!
And how kind of you,” said Berenice, yet thinking of Cowperwood and what he might say, if he knew.
“Mother, how would you like a yachting trip to the Scilly Isles?” she called through the open window.
“Lord Stane has a yacht and a harbor of his own at Tregasal, and he thinks we would enjoy it.”
She rattled it off with an air of good humour, yet touched at the same time with the slightest trace of condescension.
Stane was amused by her airy insouciance, the casual regard for an invitation which, in so many other quarters, would actually be prayed for.
Mrs. Carter appeared at the window.
“You’ll have to excuse my daughter, Lord Stane,” she said.
“She’s a very wilful girl.
I have never had any control over her, nor has anyone else that I know of.
Just the same, if I may speak for myself,”—and here she looked at Berenice as if asking permission—“it sounds delightful.
And I’m sure Bevy thinks so, too.”
“So now, tea,” ran on Berenice.
“And then you can come and pole me on the river, although I believe I like the canoe better.
Or perhaps we could walk, or we could play a game of squash before dinner.
I’ve been practicing, and I might be good at it.”
“I say, it’s too warm for squash now, isn’t it?” protested Stane.
“Lazy!
I thought all Englishmen preferred hard work on a tennis court to quite anything else.
The Empire must be decaying!”
But there was no squash that evening; instead, a canoe trip on the Thames, and afterward a leisurely dinner by candlelight, Stane dwelling on the charms of Tregasal, which, as he insisted, while not so modern or so handsome as many another good house in England, commanded a view of the sea and the rocky coast that was strangely, almost eerily, impressive.
But Berenice was still afraid to accept the invitation just then, although she was fascinated by his description of the place.
Chapter 43
Between Berenice and Stane there was almost a similarity of temperament.
Like her, he was less rugged than Cowperwood and, to a degree, less practical.
On the other hand, Stane being proportionately excluded from the practical realm in which Cowperwood shone, was more effectively radiant in that atmosphere which Berenice most enjoyed, that of an aesthetically controlled luxury.