"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral character?" "Who is her guardian?" "Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?" Blaydes whistled. "Great Scott!" "Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and restore her, tamed, to a normal existence." Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked. "I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago." "Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me. I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances." "Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?" "Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either hand. "I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in a pretty desperate state." "And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!" "Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you. But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!" "Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk to me like this." "I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. "I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's the house!" And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far distance, a shining line of sea. "My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill. "Not bad?" "Is it shown?" "Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants."