MANY times during the week which followed, Ursula caught sight of Wenn and Wright, the lilac tie and the sagacious beard, standing together in confidential attitudes about the lanes, or in the doorway of Wright’s garden, or in the evening shadow of a fuchsia-bush. And afterwards Wright would remark, à propos of nothing, that Wenn was just having a look at his early cabbages which were coming up earlier than any on record.... “And”--in an undertone over the counter--“I’m attending to that little affair of you-know-what, sir. I hope to be able to put it through for you. But you’ll understand I’m in a delicate position and”--Mr. Wright came round the counter and closed the shop-door--“I wouldn’t altogether trust Wenn.... He needs watching.”... At the end of the week, after one more attempt to cajole Doug into taking over Bella Vista, Wenn gave it up as hopeless, and realizing that a tenant of the grey stone cottage was better than no tenant at all, suddenly abandoned his former policy, and began to boast of its many excellencies which he had the week before depreciated, such as the pure spring of well-water (how much wholesomer than water from pipes); the soothing distance from any road, so that no rumble should profane the quiet (“It cost me good money to get that quiet laid on” was the unspoken parenthesis in Wenn language). Likewise he drew unblushing attention to the stability of the roof, the tightness of the windows in their frames, and the richness of the surrounding soil! The Barrisons took the cottage. They called it Grey Stone, because they did not want to call it Sea View, and grey stone and a sea view were the only obvious facts about it. Wenn, who enjoyed such succulent adjuncts to business as leases, lawyers, clauses, seals and so forth, as other men enjoyed women and wine, promised jubilantly to give instructions to his lawyer, and drive them himself into Gullick, the nearest town, when the formalities were ready. Meanwhile, they still had several weeks at Parc Gooth--and the Todys had returned. Mrs. Tody was a respectful shadow in poor health who cooked well. Her husband, whose official position at Parc Gooth seemed to be a sort of Morcarian Beefeater, greeted his new master and mistress with a long glib speech of welcome, addressed not to them directly but to some impersonal lady and gentleman standing beside them. He also referred constantly, and in terms of deep admiration, to one Tody.... The Barrisons were puzzled as to the identity of this Tody, who might quite well have been Tody himself, but who seemed also to have the distinct identity of a third person.