"I daresay."
Suddenly, he threw her a look which startled her. She descended from her
pony-cart at the steps of the castle, her breath fluttering a little.
What had happened?
"Her ladyship is in the garden," said the footman who received them. And
he led the way through a door in the wall of the side court. They
followed--in a constrained silence. Lydia felt puzzled, and rather angry.
Faversham recovered himself.
"I apologize! They have all the virtues."
His voice was lowered--for her ear; there was deference in his smile. But
somehow Lydia was conscious of a note of stormy self-assertion in him,
which was new to her; something strong and stubborn, which refused to
take her lead as usual.
Lady Tatham advanced. The eyes of a group of people sitting in a circle
under the shade of a spreading yew tree turned toward them.
Boden, who had given Faversham a perfunctory greeting, fell back into his
chair again, and watched the new agent's reception with coolly smiling
eyes.
Tatham came hurrying up to greet them. No one but Lydia could have
distinguished any change in the boyish voice and look. But it was there.
She felt it.
He turned from her to Faversham.
"Awfully glad to see you. Hope you're quite fit again."
"Very nearly all right, thank you."
"Are you actually at work? Great excitement everywhere about you!"
Tatham stood, with his straw hat tilted toward the back of his head, and
his hands on his sides, observing his guest.
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