It was a fine place, somewhat flat, perhaps, but beautiful with splendid trees, and a small lake, through which ran the stream in another part of which Cis and Charlie were going to fish.  The house stood well, the grounds were admirably laid out and perfectly kept; evidences of wealth were on all sides.

“I suppose it costs a great deal of money to keep up a place like this,” said Katherine, breaking a silence which had lasted some minutes:  De Burgh never troubled himself to speak unless he really had something to say.

“I shouldn’t care to live here on less than ten thousand a year,” he returned, glancing round.

“And has Mr. Errington all that money?”

“His father has a good deal more.  He bought this place for him, I believe.  Old Errington is very wealthy, and on his last legs, from what I hear.”

“Ten thousand a year!  What a quantity of money!”

“Hem!  I think I could get through it without much trouble.”

“Then you have always been rich?”

“Rich!  I have been on the verge of bankruptcy all my life.  I never knew what it was to have enough money.”

“But you seem to have gone everywhere and done everything.”

“Yes, by discounting my future at a ruinous rate,” he returned, with a sort of reckless candor that amused his hearer.  “You scarcely understand me, I suppose.”

“I think I do.  I know how uncomfortable it is to want money.”

“Indeed!  Still, it’s not so hard on women as on men.”

“Why?”

“We want so much more.”

“Then you have so many more chances of earning it.”

“Earning it!  Oh, that is a new view of the case!”

“I should not mind doing it; that is, if I could succeed.”

“Do you know, I took you for your nephews’ governess.  It never crossed my mind you were an heiress.  As a rule, heiresses are revolting to the last degree.”

“I feel the compliment.”

“Remember, I like their money, only I object to its being encumbered.”

“You are wonderfully frank, Mr. De Burgh.”

“I dare say you said ‘brutally frank’ in your thoughts, Miss Liddell, and you are right.  I am rather a bad lot, and a little too old to mend.  But let it be a saving clause in your mind, if I ever recur to it, that the fact of your being nice enough for the governess impelled me to offer driving lessons to the heiress.  Will you take the reins?  You might hold them forever if you choose.”

“Not yet, thank you—­when we get out on the road again,” returned Katherine, not seeing or seeming to see his covert meaning.  “You are surely not a democrat?”

“A democrat?  No.  I have no particular view as regards politics; but if the devil ever got so completely the upper hand in this world as to leave it without a class to serve and obey us, their natural superiors, I’d decline to stay here any longer, and descend by the help of a bullet to lower regions, where I should have better society.”