After all, he and Louise might have children of their own, and then the position of this little interloper might be an awkward one. Louise had always intensely wished to have a child--nay, children--and now, if it only depended on him, and if Nature would only be kind, she should have her wish. Perhaps that would be the most tangible good this legacy would bring them. Dering left the Abbey by the door which gives access to the Cloisters. There he spent half an hour in pleasant meditation before he started home, for the place which he knew to be so much dearer to his wife than to himself. Dering was a Londoner, the son of a doctor who had practised for many years in one of the City parishes, and in his heart he had much preferred the rooms in Gray's Inn which had been their first married home to the trim little villa, of which the interior had acquired an absurd and touching resemblance to that of a Danish homestead. * * * * * Those who declare that the borderlands of London lack physiognomy are strangely mistaken. Each suburban district has an individual character of its own, and of none is this more true than of Bedford Park. Encompassed by poor and populous streets, within a stone's throw of what is still one of the great highways out of the town, this oasis, composed of villas set in gardens, has the tranquil, rather mysterious, charm of a river backwater. The amazing contrast between the stir and unceasing sound of the broad High Road and the stillness of Lady Rich Road--surely the man who laid out Bedford Park must have been a Cromwell enthusiast--struck Dering with a sense of unwonted pleasure. As he put his latch-key in the front door he remembered that his wife had told him that their young Danish servant was to have that day her evening out. Well, so much the better; they would have their talk, their discussion concerning their future plans, without fear of eavesdropping or interruption. Various little signs showed that Louise was already back from town. Dering went straight upstairs, and, as he began taking off his boots, he called out to her, though the door between his room and hers was shut: "Do come in here, for I have so much to tell you!" But this brought no answering word, and after a moment he heard his wife's soft footsteps going down the house. Dering dressed himself with some care; it had always been one of his theories that a man should make himself quite as formally agreeable at home as he does elsewhere, and he and Louise had ever practised, the one to the other, the minor courtesies of life. Before going downstairs he also tidied his room, as far as was possible for him to do so, and, delicately picking up his dusty boots, he took them down into the kitchen so as to save their young servant the trouble. Then, at last, he went through into the dining-room, where he found Louise standing by the table on which lay spread their simple supper.