She looked up.

“You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about a house all day long.  You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and would be for sending me to play croquet with those young Carruthers, merely that you might get the rooms dusted.  Besides, you know I couldn’t work here:  I must have a studio of some sort—­in the neighborhood, of course.  And then you will give me your orders in the morning as to when I am to come round for luncheon or dinner.”

“And you will be alone all day at your work?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy,” she said.

“Much work I should do in that case!” he said.  “But we’ll see.  In the mean time go up-stairs and get your things off:  that young person below has breakfast ready, I dare say.”

“But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives,” said Sheila before she went to the door.

“Oh, that is miles away.  You have only seen a little bit of London yet.  Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have just come, but in another direction.”

“It is like a world made of houses,” said Sheila, “and all filled with strangers.  But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?”

“By-and-by, yes.  But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he fancies you are settled in your new home.”

And here at last was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his voice seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and waiting on him as of old, she would scarcely have been surprised if her father had walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor, or that Duncan was going over to Stornoway, and Sheila would have to give him commissions.

Her husband did not take the same interest in the social and political affairs of Borva that Mr. Ingram did.  Lavender had made a pretense of assisting Sheila in her work among the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure.  He could not remember the name of the family that wanted a new boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada.  Now Ingram, for the mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as she described all the wonderful things that had happened in the island since the previous summer.

But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up and see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling proposal that in order that she should take her first plunge into the pleasures of civilized life, her husband and herself should drive down to Richmond and dine at the Star and Garter.

“What is that?” said Sheila.

“My dear girl,” said her husband, seriously, “your ignorance is something fearful to contemplate.  It is quite bewildering.  How can a person who does not know what the Star and Garter is, be told what the Star and Garter is?”