He is off the place." "Does he object to trespassers ?" "Not if they are respectable and take no liberties." "I am respectable, and I shall not take liberties," said Miss Vanderpoel, with a touch of hauteur.

The truth was that she had spent a sufficient number of years on the Continent to have become familiar with conventions which led her not to approve wholly of his bearing.

Perhaps he had lived long enough in America to forget such conventions and to lack something which centuries of custom had decided should belong to his class.

A certain suggestion of rough force in the man rather attracted her, and her slight distaste for his manner arose from the realisation that a gentleman's servant who did not address his superiors as was required by custom was not doing his work in a finished way.

In his place she knew her own demeanour would have been finished.
"If you are sure that Lord Mount Dunstan would not object to my walking about, I should like very much to see the gardens and the house," she said.