He passed the sheet to Gumbril Junior, who held it out so that both Mr. Porteous and himself could look at it. Gumbril Senior got up from his chair and, standing behind them, leant over to elucidate and explain. “You see the idea,” he said, anxious lest they should fail to understand. “A central block of three stories, with low wings of only one, ending in pavilions with a second floor. And the flat roofs of the wings are used as gardens—you see?—protected from the north by a wall. In the east wing there is the kitchen and the garage, with the maids’ rooms in the pavilion at the end. The west is a library, and it has an arcaded loggia along the front. And instead of a solid superstructure corresponding to the maids’ rooms, there’s a pergola with brick piers. You see? And in the main block there’s a Spanish sort of balcony along the whole length at first-floor level; that gives a good horizontal line. And you get the perpendiculars with coigns and raised panels. And the roof’s hidden by a balustrade, and there are balustrades along the open sides of the roof gardens on the wings. All in brick it is. This is the garden front; the entrance front will be admirable too. Do you like it?” Gumbril Junior nodded. “Very much,” he said. His father sighed and taking the sketch put it back in his pocket. “You must hurry up with your ten thousand,” he said. “And you Porteous, and you. I’ve been waiting so long to build your splendid house.” Laughing, Mr. Porteous got up from his chair. “And long, dear Gumbril,” he said, “may you continue to wait. For my splendid house won’t be built this side of New Jerusalem, and you must go on living a long time yet. A long, long time,” Mr. Porteous repeated; and carefully he buttoned up his double-breasted coat, carefully, as though he were adjusting an instrument of precision, he took out and replaced his monocle. Then, very erect and neat, very soldierly and pillar-boxical, he marched towards the door. “You’ve kept me very late to-night,” he said. “Unconscionably late.” The front door closed heavily behind Mr. Porteous’s departure. Gumbril Senior came upstairs again into the big room on the first floor smoothing down his hair, which the impetuosity of his ascent had once more disarranged. “That’s a good fellow,” he said of his departed guest, “a splendid fellow.” “I always admire the monocle,” said Gumbril Junior irrelevantly. But his father turned the irrelevance into relevance.