When Claude heard the extraordinary news that the family was leaving for Little Badholme in three weeks' time he wondered what was in the wind. When he subsequently learned that one James Conlan was to visit them as guest, his suspicions overleaped his delight. Angela, the imperturbable, merely went on reading Bernard Shaw. CHAPTER V FROST AND FIRE Little Badholme hung on the sheer edge of a precipice. Its hundred acres of park and meadow wooed the blue waters of the Atlantic on the western side, and climbed dizzy heights on the southern, affording the spectator an uninterrupted view of the Dartmoor Tors. The front of the house faced seawards and, in bad weather, the spindrift, hurled over the cliff, drenched the windows and the rather unsightly stucco which the position of the house rendered necessary. Featherstone had shown considerable acumen in giving Jim the corner room on the first floor. It looked over country of unparalleled beauty. Patchwork farmlands stretched away, on the one hand, extending to the estuary of the Teign; whilst from the windows on the western side the rolling ocean shone under the summer sun. All the best furniture had been placed in that room, including a genuine Hepplewhite suite of beautiful design. Jim had no eye for antiques, but he had a fine appreciation of scenery. Ten days had passed on wings of magic. He saw Angela every day and Claude all day. Featherstone was perfectly charming. He could not have exhibited greater solicitude for the comfort of his guest had he been the Shah of Persia or the Prince of Wales. Lady Featherstone was polite, and no more. Angela was frigid. She seemed to be beyond his power to excite. Once or twice she showed a slight interest in his actions or reminiscences. She had even openly admired his wonderful horsemanship; but she never failed to make perfectly clear the huge gulf that loomed between a "cowboy" and a daughter of British aristocracy. The ingenuous Claude was feeling extremely uncomfortable. He could not bring himself to believe that his father's extraordinary behavior was genuine. Politeness was one thing, but flattery was another. All that "attention" seemed so out of place with His Lordship, who was notoriously vain of his name and antecedents. Claude himself was a little sick of family pride. He had even on one occasion intimated to his mother that he knew for a fact that the first Featherstone got his Letters Patent for the noble act of assassinating a certain Duke whose wife Henry Eighth had taken a violent liking for, a remark which so upset Her Ladyship that she took to bed for ten days. On convenient occasions Featherstone appropriated Jim to himself and deftly led the conversation into channels most dear to him. What did Conlan think of the property?