Houses are like people--they have their day, their hour, even, one feels inclined to add, their moods of sadness and of joy, of brightness and of dulness.

To-day the white Corinthian-looking building called Doryford House was at its best, in the soft lambent light of an autumn day. For a moment, when the long, pillared building first came into view, Radmore had felt a thrill of unreasonable disappointment. He had hoped, somehow, for a red-brick manor-house--a kind of glorified Old Place. But a few minutes later, when the mahogany front doors had been unlocked, and they pa.s.sed into a light, circular hall and so into a delightful-looking sunny drawing-room filled with enchanting examples of 18th century furniture, he began to think that this was, after all, a very attractive house.

"In what wonderful order everything seems to be!" he exclaimed. "Have the people to whom the place belongs only just left it?"

"It's this way, sir. The gentleman to whom it belongs has several other homes--he don't care for this place at all. But it's all kep' up proper--one of the gardeners sees to the furnace--and about all this here furniture, anybody who takes the house unfurnished, or buys the place, will be able to keep what they likes at a valuation. Perhaps you and your lady would like to go over the house by yourselves? People often do, I notice. If you'll excuse me, I'll just nip away. I wants to go to the village for a few minutes--that is if your little boy will be so kind as to stay with my Rosie till I'm back."

"I'm sure he will," said Radmore heartily. He told himself that it was very natural that everyone should think that he and Betty were married.

The front door shut behind the caretaker, and the two left behind began going through the ground floor of the great empty house. Their progress gave Betty an eerie feeling. She felt as if she was in a kind of dream; the more so that this was quite unlike any country house into which she had ever been.

They finally came to the last living-room of all, and both exclaimed together: "This is the room I like best of all!"

It was an octagon library, lined with mahogany bookcases filled with bound books which looked as though they hadn't been disturbed for fifty years. The wide, fan-shaped window looked out on a formal rose garden.

And then, all at once, Radmore's quick eye detected a concealed door in the wall, on which there were encrusted the sham book t.i.tles often to be found on the doors of an old country home library. Quickly he went across and, opening it, found it gave straight on to a corkscrew staircase.

Filled with a queer sense of adventure, he motioned Betty to go up first, in front of him.

The staircase led up to a tiny lobby, into which opened a most beautiful bedchamber, a replica as to shape and size of the library beneath.

The furniture there interested Betty, for she had never seen anything like it, except once in a chateau near Arras. It was First Empire, and on the pin-cushion, lying on the ornate dressing-table, someone had written in a fine Italian hand on an envelope, the words: "This room was furnished from Paris in 1810. The bed is a replica of a bed made for the Empress Josephine."

They went on through many of the rooms on the upper floor, full to-day of still, sunny late autumn charm.

Radmore scarcely spoke at all during their curious progress through the empty house, and Betty still felt as if in a dream. She had asked herself again and again if he could really be thinking of buying this stately mansion.

The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking of marrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any of them knew.

At last they came down a wide staircase which terminated in a corridor leading into the circular hall, and then it was Betty who broke what was becoming an oppressive silence:

"Shall we go on and see the kitchen and the servants' quarters, G.o.dfrey?"

"No; they're sure to be all right."

Again came what seemed to Betty a long, unnatural silence.

"Do you really like the house?" he asked at last.

"I like it very much," she said frankly. "But wouldn't it cost a tremendous lot of money, G.o.dfrey? It would be a pity not to buy it exactly as it stands. It all seems so--so--"

"I know! As if the furniture had grown there," he broke in.

"So beautiful and so--so unusual," Betty went on diffidently.

"I'm afraid I'm a commonplace person, Betty. I like a room to be beautiful, but I like comfort, and I think this is a very comfortable house. I feel, somehow, as if happy, good people had lived here. I like that, too."

He was standing by one of the round pillars which carried out the type of architecture which had been the fashion at the time Doryford was built; and he was gazing at her with what seemed to her a rather odd expression on his dark face. Was he going to tell her of his hopes or intention with regard to Mrs. Crofton?

Betty felt, for the first time that day, intensely shy. She walked away, towards the big half-moon window opposite the front door. A wide gra.s.s gallop, bordered with splendid old trees, stretched out as if illimitable, and she began gazing down it with unseeing eyes.

He came quickly across the hall, and stood by her. Then he said slowly, "I'm wondering, wondering, wondering if I shall ever be in this house again!"

"You must think it well over," she began.

But he cut her short. "It depends on _you_ whether Doryford becomes my home or not."

"On me?" she repeated, troubled. "Don't trust to my taste as much as that, G.o.dfrey."

"But you do like it?" he asked insistently.

"Of course I like it. If it comes to that, I don't know that I've ever been in so beautiful and perfect a house. And then, well perhaps because we've everything so shabby at Old Place, I do like to see everything in such apple-pie order!"

A little disappointed, he went on, "I fear it isn't your ideal house, Betty? Not your house of dreams?"

And then, all at once, she knew that she couldn't answer him, for tears had welled up in her eyes, and choked her speech.

Her house of dreams? Betty Tosswill's house of dreams had vanished, she thought, for ever, so very long ago. Betty's house of dreams had been quite a small house--but such a cosy, happy place, full of the G.o.dfrey of long ago, and of good, delicious dream children....

She turned her head away.

"Well," he exclaimed, "that's that! We won't think about this house again. We'll go and look at another place to-morrow."

His matter-of-fact, rather cross, tone made her pull herself together.

What a baby he was after all!

"Don't be absurd, G.o.dfrey. I don't believe if we were to look England through, that I should see a house I thought more delightful than this house. I'm a little overawed by it, that's all! You see I've never dwelt in marble halls--"

"Oh, one gets used to that!"

"Yes, I expect one does."

"Whether I buy this place depends on you," he said obstinately.

"Well, then, if I'm to decide, I say buy it!" She turned and smiled at him a little tremulously, keeping her head well down--her face shadowed by the deep brim of her motor-bonnet.

More and more was this like a scene out of a dream to Betty Tosswill. In a way, it was, of course, natural that she and G.o.dfrey should be alone, and that he should turn to her as his closest friend. And yet it seemed strange and unnatural, too. But Betty had a very generous nature--and to this man, who was looking at her with such an eager, searching look, she felt in a peculiar relation. So she repeated, with greater ease and lightness, "Let's settle, here and now, that this is to be the future residence of G.o.dfrey Radmore, Esquire! Timmy's a little bit like a cat, you know. He'll simply adore this house. He'll love all the pretty things in it. Perhaps you'd run him up in the motor presently, while I stay with the little girl and that nice woman?"

And then all at once he took a step forward and roughly took her two hands in his: "Betty," he said, "don't you understand? I shall never enter this house again unless you're willing to come and share it with me. No place would be home to me without you in it. Why, Old Place is only home now because you're there."

She looked at him with a long, searching, measuring look; a look that was, unconsciously, full of questioning; but her hands remained in his strong grasp.

"Don't you know that I've always been yours?" he asked--"that I shall always be yours even if you won't have me--even if I end by marrying another woman, as I daresay I shall do if you won't have me, for I'm a lonely chap--" And then something in her face made him add: "Try to love me again, Betty. I want you to say to yourself--'a poor thing but mine own.' Do, my dear."

And then Betty burst out crying, and found herself clasped in his arms, strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft, tremulous mouth.