"It's very good of you to be pleased at the prospect of a grim old bachelor being near you," Sir George said, and looked at her critically. Her beauty had been taking him by surprise. How lucky Vincent was to have her, he thought. He remembered his own empty rooms in Mount Street, their luxury and loneliness, the precision with which everything kept to its place, their silence and dulness. Vincent had made a mull of his life, but he had a home, and a wife who, though no doubt she was homely enough--mended his socks and cooked his dinner herself, perhaps--was probably a handsome woman, since she was the mother of this beautiful creature. In spite of his opinions, and the manner in which he had kicked aside his prospects, Vincent had not done so badly for himself after all. "Did father tell you that we lived at Woodside Farm?" Margaret asked. "Of course he did. I wish I had known it the other day. By-the-way, Vincent," he went on to her father, "it was young Carringford who told me of the house. You remember his father? He was President of the Union just before your time. He died about a year ago worth a quarter of a million, and left two children--this boy, who is only two or three and twenty now, and a girl who married Lord Arthur Wanstead. They have a hundred thousand pounds each." "It sounds as if it could never be counted," Margaret said. "Only three thousand a year if they have the luck to get three per cent. for it, and income tax off that. Well, Master Tom has some friends living on Hindhead--in red-brick houses that ought to be blown up with gunpowder, especially when they have weather-cocks on their gables. Hindhead, as you probably know, is celebrated for its red-brick houses, philosophers, pretty young ladies, and afternoon parties at which games are played with astonishing energy." "We are miles and miles from Hindhead," Margaret said, bewildered. But Sir George enjoyed talking, and took it for granted that others liked to listen. "Of course you are," he answered, genially; "but one fine day he and the Lakemans were staying in the neighborhood. He rode over to Chidhurst, saw this house, and thought it might do for them, so they all went over to look at it--" "She told me." "Oh, you have heard from her? Mrs. Lakeman, as you probably know, is a lady who does not care for quite so much unadulterated nature as there is in your neighborhood, so the house didn't suit her. The other day Tom told me of it, and I took it on the spot. When did you see her last?" "A good many years ago." Mr. Vincent's manner was a shade curt. Sir George looked up quickly. "Why, of course, I remember--what an idiot I am!" "Not at all. We are going there this afternoon. Who was Lakeman? I didn't know him." "No one in particular; but he was good-looking and fairly well off." Sir George smiled to himself, and took a liqueur with his coffee. "She was a fascinating woman," he added; "and has had my scalp among others."