“No,” he replied.  “There’s few things I wouldn’t do for you, on the earth or in the waters under the earth, and I say that, even though you’ve turned me down after lifting the light of hope.  But for me to see Gurd on this subject is impossible.  It’s far too delicate.  Another man might, but not me, because he knows that I stand in the unfortunate position of the cast out.  So if there’s one man that can’t go to Gurd and demand reparation on your account, I’m that man.  In a calmer moment, you’ll be the first to see it.”

“I suppose that is so.  He’d think, if you talked sense to him, you had an axe to grind and treat you according.  You’ve suffered enough.”

“I have without a doubt, and shall continue to do so,” he answered her.

“I think just as much of you as ever I did notwithstanding,” said Mrs. Northover.  “And I’ll go so far as to say that your simple goodness and calm sense under all circumstances might wear better in the long run than Richard’s overbearing way and cruel conceit.  Be honest, Job.  Do you yourself think ‘The Tiger’ is a finer house and more famous than my place?”

Mr. Legg perceived very accurately where Nelly suffered most.

“This house,” he declared, “have got the natural advantages and Gurd have got the pull in the matter of capital.  My candid opinion, what I’ve come to after many years of careful thought on the subject, is that if we—­I say ‘we’ from force of habit, though I’m in the outer darkness now—­if we had a few hundred pounds spending on us and an advertisement to holiday people in the papers sometimes, then in six months we shouldn’t hear any more about ‘The Tiger.’  Cash, spent by the hand of a master on ‘The Seven Stars,’ would lift us into a different house and we should soon be known to cater for a class that wouldn’t recognise ’The Tiger.’  What we want is a bit of gold and white paint before next summer and all those delicate marks about the place that women understand and value.  I’ve often thought that a new sign for example, with seven golden stars on a sky blue background, and perhaps even a flagstaff in the pleasure grounds, with our own flag flying upon it, would, as it were, widen the gulf between him and you.  But, of course, that was before these things happened, and when I was thinking, day and night you may say, how to catch the custom.”

Mrs. Northover sighed.

“In another man, it would be craft to say such clever things,” she answered; “but, in you, I know it’s just simple goodness of heart and Christian fellowship.  ’Tis amazing how we think alike.”

“Not now,” he corrected her.  “Too late now.  I wish to God we had thought alike; for then, instead of looking at my money as I’d look at a pile of road scrapings, I should see it with very different eyes.  My windfall would have been poured out here in such a fashion that the people would have wondered.  This place is my life, in a manner of speaking.  My earthly life, I mean; which you may say is ended now.  I was, in my own opinion, as much a part of ‘The Seven Stars,’ as the beer engine.  And when uncle died this was my first thought.  Or I should say my second, because in the natural course of events, you were the first.”