And if he wanted it to look like a medieval castle, again why shouldn’t he? The Pendorrics had apparently been glad to sell him the land. It was not for them to tell him how he must use it. As Roc and I set out that Wednesday afternoon he seemed to be enjoying some secret joke.

” I can’t wait to see what you think of the set-up,” he told me. To my unpractised eye the house looked as old as Pendorric.

” Do you know,” I said to Roc, as we approached the stone unicorns which did the same service as our battered lions, ” I shouldn’t know that this wasn’t a genuine antique if you hadn’t told me.”

” Ah, you wait till you’ve had a chance to examine it.” We pulled the bell in the great portico and heard it clanging through the hall.

A dignified manservant opened the door and, bowing his head, said solemnly: ” Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, madam. His lordship is waiting for you, so I’ll take you up immediately.” It took quite a long time to reach the room where our host was waiting for us; and I noticed that although the furniture was antique the carpets and curtains were expensively modern.

We were finally led to a large room with windows overlooking the beautifully laid-out cliff garden which ran down to the sea; and resting on a chaise-longue was the old man.

” My lord,” the manservant announced, ” Mr. and Mrs. Pendorric.”

” Ah! Bring them in, Dawson. Bring them in.”

He turned his head, and the intentness of those grey eyes was rather disturbing, particularly as they were directed towards me. ” Good of you to come,” he said rather brusquely, as though he didn’t mean this. “You’ll have to forgive my not rising.”

“Please don’t,” I said quickly, and I went to his chaise-longue and took his hand.

He had a high colour with a faint purplish tinge, and I noticed how the veins stood out on his long thin hands.

” Sit down, Mrs. Pendorric,” he said, still in the same brusque manner. ” Give your wife a chair, Pendorric. And put it near me … that’s right, facing the light.”

I had to suppress a slight resentment that I was being put under a shrewd scrutiny, and I experienced a certain nervousness which I hadn’t expected I should.

“Tell me, how do you like Cornwall, Mrs. Pendorric?” He spoke sharply, jerkily, as though he were barking orders on a barrack square ‘| ” I’m enchanted,” I said.

” And it compares favourably with that island place of ‘yours?”

” Oh yes.”

” All I see of it now is this view.” He nodded towards the window. ” I can’t imagine you’d find a more beautiful one anywhere.” He looked from me to Roc; and I was aware that my husband’s expression had become rather sardonic. He didn’t like the old roan, that much was clear; and I felt annoyed with him because I was afraid he made it obvious.

Our host was frowning towards the door. ” Late with tea,” he said. He must give his servants a difficult time, I thought, for even if he had asked for tea to be served immediately we arrived it was not very late; we had not been in the room more than three or four minutes.

Then me door opened and a tea wagon was wheeled in. It was overladen with cakes of all descriptions besides bread and butter and splits with bowls of clotted cream and jam.

“Ah,” Lord Polhorgan grunted, “at last! Where’s Nurse Grey?”

” Here I am.” A woman came into the room. She was so beautiful that for a moment I was startled. The blue in her striped dress matched her eyes, her starched apron was snowy white, and her cap, set almost jauntily on her masses of golden hair, called attention to its beauty.

I had never seen a nurse’s uniform worn so becomingly; then I realised that this woman would look dazzling whatever she wore, simply because she was so very beautiful.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pendorric,” she said.

Roc had risen to his feet as she entered and I could not see his face as he looked at her. He said: “Good afternoon, Nurse.” Then he turned.

” Favel, this is Nurse Grey, who looks after Lord Polhorgan.”

“I’m so glad to meet you.” She had a wide’ mouth and perfectly shaped teeth.

“What about giving Mrs. Pendorric some tea?” growled Lord Polhorgan.

” Of course,” said Nurse Grey. ” It’s all here, I see. Now, Mrs. Pendorric, you’d like to sit near Lord Polhorgan. I’ll put this little table here for you. “

I thanked her and she went to the tea wagon and began to pour out while Roc brought over a plate of splits and cream and jam which he set on the table.

” I don’t need a nurse all the time,” Lord Polhorgan told me. ” But I may need one at any moment. That’s why she’s here. Quite an efficient woman.”

” I am sure she is.”

” Easy job. Gets a lot of free time. Beautiful surroundings.”

“Ideal,” I murmured, wondering how Nurse Grey liked being referred to in the third person. I glanced at her. She was smiling at Roc. I handed Lord Polhorgan the splits, and I noticed that he moved slowly and was rather breathless as he took one.

” Shall I spread the jam and cream for you?” I asked.

“H’m!” he barked, which meant assent.

“Thanks!” he added when I had done it. ” Good of you. Now help yourself.”

Nurse Grey asked if I preferred China or Indian, and I was given delicious Mandarin Pekoe with lemon.

She then sat down near Roc. I very much wanted to hear what they were saying, but Lord Polhorgan demanded my attention by firing questions at me. He appeared to be very interested in the way we had lived on the island, and I promised to show him some of my father’s work which had been sent to Pendorric.

” Good,” he said. He made me talk about my childhood and in a short time I was living it all again.

” You’re not happy,” said Lord Polhorgan suddenly, and I blurted out the story of my father’s death, to which he listened gravely and then said: ” You were very fond of him. Was your mother fond of him too?”

I told him something of their life together then, how they had lived for each other, how ill she had become and how they had made me aware that they wanted to live every hour to the full because they knew that the time would come when they could not be together; and as I did so I marvelled that I could talk so intimately to such a gruff old man on such short acquaintance.

He laid his veined hand on my arm. ” Is that how it is with you?” he said sharply, and he looked towards Roc, who was laughing with Nurse Grey.

I hesitated just a second too long.

” Marry in haste …” he added. ” Seem to have heard that said somewhere.”

I flushed. ” I’m very happy at Pendorric,” I retorted. ” You rush into things,” he said. ” Bad habit. I never rushed. Made decisions, yes … and sometimes quick ones, but always gave them adequate thought. You coming to see me again?”

” If you ask me.”

” Then you are asked now.”

” Thank you.”

” You won’t want to, though.”

” Yes, I shall.”

He shook his head. ” You’ll make excuses. Too busy. Another engagement. What would a young woman like you want with visiting a sick old man?”

” But I’d love to come.”

” You’ve got a kind heart. But kindness doesn’t always go very deep.

Don’t want to hurt the old man . go now and then. But a bore. What a nuisance! “

” It will be nothing of the sort. You’re so interested in things. And I’m attracted by this house.”

” Pretty vulgar, eh? The old man of the people who wanted to build up a bit of background. Doesn’t go down well with the aristocrats, I can tell you.”

” Why shouldn’t people build backgrounds if they want them?”

” Listen, young woman. There’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t build anything. You get your just deserts in this world. I wanted to make money and I made it. I wanted to have a family mansion … well, I’ve got it. In this world you say, I want this and I want that. And if you’ve got any guts you go and get it. You get what you pay for, and if it doesn’t turn out as you planned, well then you have to look for where you went wrong because, you can depend on it, you’ve gone wrong somewhere.”

” I expect you’re right.”

” I’d like you to come again even if you are bored. Perhaps you’d be less bored after a while … when we got to know each other.”

” I haven’t started to be bored yet. “

He clenched and unclenched his hand, frowning at it. ” I’m an old man incapacitated by illness … brought on, they tell me, by the life I’ve led.” He patted his chest. ” I’ve put a big strain on this, it seems, and now I’ve got to pay for it. All right, I say, life’s a matter of settling bills and drawing dividends. I’m ready.”

” I can see you have a philosophy.”

“Play chess?”

” My mother taught me.”

“Your mother, eh?”

” She also taught me reading, writing and arithmetic, before I came to school in England.”

” I reckon you were the apple of her eye.”

” I was her only child.”

” Yes,” he said soberly. ” Well, if you played a game of chess with me now and then, you wouldn’t be so bored with the old man’s efforts at conversation. When will you come?”

I considered. ” The day after tomorrow,” I said.

“Good. Teatime?”

” Yes, but I mustn’t eat so many of these splits or I shall put on too much weight.”

He looked at me and his eyes were suddenly soft. ” You’re as slight as a sylph,” he said.

Nurse Grey came over with plates of cakes, but we did not seem in the mood for eating any more.

I noticed that Nurse Grey’s eyes had grown more luminous and that there was a faint pink colour in her cheeks. I wondered uneasily whether Roc had had anything to do with that, and I was reminded of Rachel Bective and Dinah Bond, the young blacksmith’s wife. The conversation became general, and after an hour we left. Roc was clearly amused as we walked home.

“Another conquest for you,” he commented.

“The old fellow certainly took to you. I’ve never known him so gracious before.”

“Poor old man, I don’t think people try to understand him.”

” They don’t need to,” retorted Roc. ” He’s as easy to read as an A.B.C. He’s the typical self-made man—a character off the shelf. There are some people who mould themselves on old cliches.

They decide the sort of person they’re going to be and start playing the part; after a while they’re so good at it that it becomes second nature. That’s why there are so many stock characters in the world.”

He grinned at me.

“You don’t believe me, do you? Well, look at Lord P. Started selling newspapers … perhaps not newspapers, but some such job.

It’s the pattern that matters, not the detail. Never goes in for any fun, piles up the little capital to start with, and by the time he’s thirty, industry and skill have turned it into a big capital and he’s on the way to becoming a millionaire. That’s all very well, but he can’t be himself . he has to be one of the band of self-made men. He clings to his rough manners.

“I came up from nothing and I’m proud of it!” Doesn’t go in for the ordinary graces of conventional living. Why should I change myself? I’m perfect as I am. ” Oh, I don’t have to try to understand Lord P. If he were made of glass I shouldn’t be able to see through him more clearly.”

” You don’t forgive him for building his house.”

Roc shrugged his shoulders. ” Perhaps not. It’s a fake and I hate fakes. Suppose all the self-made men made up their minds to build along our coast? What a sight! No, I’m against these pseudo-antiques; and to have put one on our doorstep is an imposition. Polhorgan’s Folly is an outsider here on our coast with houses like Pendorric, Mount Mellyn, Mount Widden, Cotehele and the like . just as its master is . with his Midland manners calling himself Lord Polhorgan.

As though Tre, Pol and Pen did not belong to Cornishmen. “

“How vehement you are!” I said, and trying to speak lightly added: ” And if I made a conquest, what of you?”

He was smiling as he turned to me. ” Thea, you mean? “

” You call her that?”

“That’s her name, my dear. Althea Grey—Thea to her friends.”

” Of whom you are one.”

” Of course, and so will you be. As for my conquest,” he went on, “that’s one of long standing. She has been here eighteen months, you know.”

Then he put his arm about me and began to sing:

” Wherever you hear Tre, Pol and Pen You’ll know that you’re with Cornishmen.”

He smiled at me and continued:

” Alas, I have to add a rider. One can’t ignore the rich outsider.”