Then they entered the drive, swept up between the long beds of brilliant tulips until the house came full in view, and from that moment her little ejaculations of delight and admiration were a pleasure to him and a distraction to her.

“It’s a wonderful old place!” she exclaimed.  “And doesn’t it make it twice as wonderful to think that Queen Elizabeth stayed here when it was just like it is now!” This fact he had told her as they came down, knowing that the childish enthusiasm of her mind would catch hold of it, drive it deep into her imagination and hang thereon a pretty raiment of romance.

“Does add a bit of colour,” he admitted with a smile.  “I expect she made it pretty expensive for the old gentleman who entertained her.  He probably had to keep quiet for a few months after she’d gone, and lay restrictions on the household expenditure.”

Then they drew up before the hall door and Traill helped her to alight.

“I guess we’ll make old Mrs. Butterick give us some lunch first.  Are you hungry?” He opened the hall door and stood aside to let her enter.

“Yes, frightfully.  I suppose it was the drive.”

“All right, just a second; you go round there through the hall to the left—­fine old hall, isn’t it?—­and the first door on the left, that’s the dining-room.  I shan’t be long.  I just want to see about getting this filthy coloured taxi out of the light and tell the gardener to get the chauffeur a meal—­you wait in the dining-room.”

He closed the door again.  Sally stood for a moment looking about her.  The old square panelling of oak—­black with age—­the huge open grate with its logs of wood ready for the burning, the ornaments of pewter—­old pewter jugs, old pewter plates with coats of arms embossed upon their surface, all the perfection of it awed her and, with a momentary wave of depression that beat over her feelings of admiration, she felt an interloper in a place that was beyond her wildest dreams of avarice.  It was with no little sense of reluctance, even though the anticipation of meeting any one never for the moment entered her head, that she made her way slowly to the dining-room, hoping every moment to hear his footsteps following her—­giving her, so it seemed, the right to her presence in so luxurious a place.  No wonder he loved it.  And then, the thought struck at her, would it be any wonder if he re-purchased, as he had said he had the right to do?  And if that were to happen—­he was making his name now, and it well might—­would he bring her here to live with him?  Would he perhaps make her his wife?  Or would they live, as they lived together now?  Or—­and the thought drove blood that was cold and chilling through her veins—­would it be impossible for them to live so publicly in such a way, and would he then live alone?

She tried to shake herself free of this mood of conjecture, took the handle firmly within her fingers, opened the door, and walked into the room.