“They ought to be,” Sir Isaac went on, “white and a sort of green. Like the County Council notices on Hampstead Heath. So as to blend.... You see, an ad. that hits too hard is worse than no ad. at all. It leaves a dislike.... Advertisements ought to blend. It ought to seem as though all this view were saying it. Not just that board. Now suppose we had a shade of very light brown, a kind of light khaki——” He turned a speculative eye on Mr. Brumley as if he sought for the effect of this latter suggestion on him. “If the whole board was invisible——” said Mr. Brumley. Sir Isaac considered it. “Just the letters showing,” he said. “No,—that would be going too far in the other direction.” He made a faint sucking noise with his lips and teeth as he surveyed the landscape and weighed this important matter.... “Queer how one gets ideas,” he said at last, turning away. “It was my wife told me about that board.” He stopped to survey the house from the exact point of view his wife had taken nine days before. “I wouldn’t give this place a second thought,” said Sir Isaac, “if it wasn’t for Lady Harman.” He confided. “_She_ wants a week-end cottage. But _I_ don’t see why it _should_ be a week-end cottage. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be made into a nice little country house. Compact, of course. By using up that barn.” He inhaled three bars of a tune. “London,” he explained, “doesn’t suit Lady Harman.” “Health?” asked Mr. Brumley, all alert. “It isn’t her health exactly,” Sir Isaac dropped out. “You see—she’s a young woman. She gets ideas.” “You know,” he continued, “I’d like to have a look at that barn again. If we develop that—and a sort of corridor across where the shrubs are—and ran out offices....” §5 Mr. Brumley’s mind was still vigorously struggling with the flaming implications of Sir Isaac’s remark that Lady Harman “got ideas,” and Sir Isaac was gently whistling his way towards an offer of three thousand nine hundred when they came down out of the pines into the path along the edge of the herbaceous border. And then Mr. Brumley became aware of an effect away between the white-stemmed trees towards the house as if the Cambridge boat-race crew was indulging in a vigorous scrimmage. Drawing nearer this resolved itself into the fluent contours of Lady Beach-Mandarin, dressed in sky-blue and with a black summer straw hat larger than ever and trimmed effusively with marguerites. “Here,” said Sir Isaac, “can’t I get off? You’ve got a friend.” “You must have some tea,” said Mr. Brumley, who wanted to suggest that they should agree to Sir Isaac’s figure of three thousand eight hundred, but not as pounds but guineas. It seemed to him a suggestion that might prove insidiously attractive. “It’s a charming lady, my friend Lady Beach-Mandarin. She’ll be delighted——” “I don’t think I can,” said Sir Isaac. “Not in the habit—social occasions.” His face expressed a panic terror of this gallant full-rigged lady ahead of them.