to complete the illusion. Nothing is impossible, and I suppose you can
get permission from the old Wendover who lives in Rome to do what you
wish?"

"I should like to have been able to take the park of the next place, La
Sarthe Chase, too--that impassable haw-haw and the boarded-up gate
irritate me. The boards have been put since I came to look over
everything last autumn. I did instruct the agent, Martin, in Applewood
to offer a large price for it, but he assured me it would be quite
useless; it belongs, it appears, to the most ridiculous old ladies, who
are almost starving, but would rather die than be sensible."

Suddenly John Derringham was conscious that his sympathies had shifted
to the Misses La Sarthe, and he could not imagine why.

"You told me, I think," she went on, "that you knew this neighborhood.
Do you happen to be aware of any bait I could hold out to them?"

"No, I do not," he said. "That sort of pride is foolish, if you like;
but there it is--part of an inheritance of the spirit which in the past
has made England great. They are wonderful old ladies. I dined with them
once long ago."

"I must really go over and see them one day. Perhaps I could persuade
them to my view."

The flicker of a smile came into the eyes of John Derringham, and she
noticed it at once. It angered her, and deepened the pretty pink in her
fresh cheeks.