Then there was another pause. She addressed her attention to the
opposite end of the grounds, kept it for her husband's return with
the child. "Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?" it occurred to me to
ask, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to bring the
conversation constantly back to him.

"He's very fond of plums," said his wife.

"Ah well, then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It's
a lovely old place," I continued. "The whole impression's that of
certain places he has described. Your house is like one of his
pictures."

She seemed a bit frigidly amused at my glow. "It's a pleasant little
place. There are hundreds like it."

"Oh it has his TONE," I laughed, but sounding my epithet and
insisting on my point the more sharply that my companion appeared to
see in my appreciation of her simple establishment a mark of mean
experience.

It was clear I insisted too much. "His tone?" she repeated with a
harder look at me and a slightly heightened colour.

"Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient."

"Oh yes, he has indeed! But I don't in the least consider that I'm
living in one of his books at all. I shouldn't care for that in the
least," she went on with a smile that had in some degree the effect