The lawyer had, in his letters to the selected number, timed each candidate at an interval of ten or fifteen minutes from those preceding and following.  They were shown in as they arrived, and had short conversations with Mr. Nyttleton—­terse, and to the point.  Miss Aldclyffe neither moved nor spoke during this proceeding; it might have been supposed that she was quite unmindful of it, had it not been for what was revealed by a keen penetration of the veil covering her countenance—­the rays from two bright black eyes, directed towards the lawyer and his interlocutor.

Springrove came fifth; Manston seventh.  When the examination of all was ended, and the last man had retired, Nyttleton, again as at the former time, blandly asked his client which of the eight she personally preferred.  ’I still think the fifth we spoke to, Springrove, the man whose letter I pounced upon at first, to be by far the best qualified, in short, most suitable generally.’

’I am sorry to say that I differ from you; I lean to my first notion still—­that Mr.—­Mr. Manston is most desirable in tone and bearing, and even specifically; I think he would suit me best in the long-run.’

Mr. Nyttleton looked out of the window at the whitened wall of the court.

’Of course, madam, your opinion may be perfectly sound and reliable; a sort of instinct, I know, often leads ladies by a short cut to conclusions truer than those come to by men after laborious round-about calculations, based on long experience.  I must say I shouldn’t recommend him.’

‘Why, pray?’

’Well, let us look first at his letter of answer to the advertisement.  He didn’t reply till the last insertion; that’s one thing.  His letter is bold and frank in tone, so bold and frank that the second thought after reading it is that not honesty, but unscrupulousness of conscience dictated it.  It is written in an indifferent mood, as if he felt that he was humbugging us in his statement that he was the right man for such an office, that he tried hard to get it only as a matter of form which required that he should neglect no opportunity that came in his way.’

’You may be right, Mr. Nyttleton, but I don’t quite see the grounds of your reasoning.’

’He has been, as you perceive, almost entirely used to the office duties of a city architect, the experience we don’t want.  You want a man whose acquaintance with rural landed properties is more practical and closer—­somebody who, if he has not filled exactly such an office before, has lived a country life, knows the ins and outs of country tenancies, building, farming, and so on.’

‘He’s by far the most intellectual looking of them all.’

’Yes; he may be—­your opinion, Miss Aldclyffe, is worth more than mine in that matter.  And more than you say, he is a man of parts —­his brain power would soon enable him to master details and fit him for the post, I don’t much doubt that.  But to speak clearly’ (here his words started off at a jog-trot) ’I wouldn’t run the risk of placing the management of an estate of mine in his hands on any account whatever.  There, that’s flat and plain, madam.’