“It was a lucky escape for her,” he said, dreamily.

“It was,” assented Howard, solemnly.  “Not one man in a thousand can love one woman all his life; and I’ve the strongest conviction that I am not that one.  In less than six months I should have grown tired of her—­in less than a year I should have flown from the joys of matrimony—­or killed the partner of those joys.  Has Pottinger a wife and family, my dear Stafford?  If so, is it wise to risk his life in this fashion?  I don’t care for myself—­though still young, I am not afraid to die, and I would as soon meet it hurled from a phaeton as not—­but may I beg of you to think of Pottinger?”

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 facade 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.