“Thank you, Mr. Walden!” then said Sir Morton Pippitt with a grandiose air, as of one who graciously confers a benefit on the silence by breaking it; “Thank you for—­er—­for—­er—­the pleasure of your company this—­er—­this morning!  My friend, the Duke,—­and Lord Mawdenham—­and—­er—­our rising poet, Mr. Adderley—­and—­er—­Mr. Longford, have been delighted.  Yes—­er—­delighted!  Of course you know my opinion!  Ha-ha-ha!  You know my opinion!  It is the same as it ever was—­I never change!  When I have once made up my mind, it is a fixture!  I have said already and I say it again, that the church was quite good enough for such people as live here, in its original condition, and that you have really spent a great deal of cash on a very needless work!  I mustn’t be rude, no, no, no!—­but you know the old adage:  ‘Fools and their money!’ Ha-ha-ha!  But we shan’t quarrel.  Oh, dear no!  It has cost me nothing, I am glad to say!  Ha-ha!  Nor anybody else!  Now, if Miss Vancourt of Abbot’s Manor had been here when you began this restoration business of yours, she might have had something to say—­ha-ha-ha!  She always has something to say!”

“You think she would have objected?” queried Walden, coldly.

“Oh, I won’t go so far as that—­no!—­eh, your Grace—­we won’t go so far as that!”

The Duke of Lumpton, thus suddenly adjured, looked round, and smiled vacantly.

“Won’t go so far as what?” he asked; “Didn’t catch it!”

“I was talking of Maryllia Vancourt,” said Sir Morton with a kind of fatuous leer; “You know her, of course!—­everyone knows her more or less.  Charming girl!—­charming!  Maryllia Van!—­ha-ha!”

And Sir Morton laughed and leered again till certain veins, moved by cerebral emotion, protruded largely on his forehead.  His Grace laughed also, but shortly and indifferently.

“Oh, ya-as—­ya-as!  She’s the one who’s just had a rumpus with her rich American aunt.  I believe they don’t speak, After years of devotion, eh?  So like women, ain’t it!”

The Reverend ‘Putty’ Leveson, who had been stooping over his bicycle to set something right that was invariably going wrong with that particular machine, and who was redder than ever in the face with his efforts, now looked up.

“Miss Vancourt is coming back to the Manor to reside there, so I hear,” he said.  “Very dull for a woman accustomed to London and Paris.  I expect she’ll stay about ten days.”

“One never knows—­one cannot tell!” sighed Julian Adderley.  “Sometimes to the satiated female mind, overwrought with social dissipation, there comes a strange longing for peace!—­for the scent of roses!—­for the yellow shine of cowslips!—­for the song of the mating birds!—­for the breath of cows!”

Mr. Marius Longford smiled, and picked a tall buttercup nodding in the grass at his feet.