There was a pause, then Stafford said: "Do you know any of your neighbours--any of the people round about?"
"No; I was never here until yesterday, excepting for an hour or two.
But we shall know them, I suppose; they'll call in a little while, and
we will ask them to dinner, and so on. There should be some nice
people--Ah, Mr. Howard, we've stolen a march on you!"
"I'm not surprised, sir," said Howard, as he came up in his slow and
languid way. "I am sorry to say that Stafford has an extremely bad
habit of getting up at unreasonable hours. I wait until I am dragged
out of bed by a fellow-creature or the pangs of hunger. Of course you
have been bathing, Staff? Early rising and an inordinate love of cold
water--externally--at all seasons are two of his ineradicable vices,
Sir Stephen. I have done my best to cure them, but--alas!"
They went in to breakfast, which was served in a room with bay windows
opening on to the terrace overlooking the lake. Exactly opposite
Stafford's chair was the little opening on the other side from which he
and the girl from Heron Hall had gazed at the villa. He looked at it
and grew silent.
A large dispatch-box stood beside Sir Stephen's plate. He did not open
it, but sent it to his room.
"I never read my letters before breakfast," he remarked. "They spoil
one's digestion. I'm afraid the mail's heavy this morning, judging by
the weight of the box; so that I shall be busy. You two gentlemen will,
I trust, amuse yourselves in your own way. Mr. Howard, the groom will
await your orders."
"Thanks," said Howard; "but I propose to sit quite still on a chair
which I have carried out on to the terrace. I have had enough of
driving to last me for a week;" and he shuddered.
Stafford laughed.
"Howard's easily disposed of, sir," he said. "Give him a hammock or an
easy-chair in the shade, and he can always amuse himself by going to
sleep."
"True; and if half the men I know spent their time in a similar fashion
this would be a brighter and a better world. What you will do, my dear
Stafford, I know by bitter experience. He will go and wade through a
river or ride at a break-neck pace down some of those hills. Stafford
is never happy unless he is trying to lay up rheumatism for his old age
or endeavouring to break his limbs."