Part 14 (1/2)

”It seems to speak volumes,” said Philippa.

”Doesn't it?” said Mr. Spillikins. ”You don't mind my telling you all about this Miss Philippa?” he added.

Incidentally Mr. Spillikins felt that it was all right to call her Miss Philippa, because she had a sister who was really Miss Furlong, so it would have been quite wrong, as Mr. Spillikins realized, to have called Miss Philippa by her surname. In any case, the beauty of the morning was against it.

”I don't mind a bit,” said Philippa. ”I think it's awfully nice of you to tell me about it.”

She didn't add that she knew all about it already.

”You see,” said Mr. Spillikins, ”you're so awfully sympathetic. It makes it so easy to talk to you. With other girls, especially with clever ones, even with Dulphemia. I often feel a perfect jacka.s.s beside them. But I don t feel that way with you at all.”

”Don't you really?” said Philippa, but the honest admiration in Mr. Spillikin's protruding blue eyes forbade a sarcastic answer.

”By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins presently, with complete irrelevance, ”I hope you don't mind my saying it, but you look awfully well in white-stunning.” He felt that a man who was affianced, or practically so, was allowed the smaller liberty of paying honest compliments.

”Oh, this old thing,” laughed Philippa, with a contemptuous shake of her dress. ”But up here, you know, we just wear anything.” She didn't say that this old thing was only two weeks old and had cost eighty dollars, or the equivalent of one person's pew rent at St. Asaph's for six months.

And after that they had only time, so it seemed to Mr. Spillikins, for two or three remarks, and he had scarcely had leisure to reflect what a charming girl Philippa had grown to be since she went to Bermuda-the effect, no doubt, of the climate of those fortunate islands-when quite suddenly they rounded a curve into an avenue of nodding trees, and there were the great lawn and wide piazzas and the conservatories of Castel Casteggio right in front of them.

”Here we are,” said Philippa, ”and there's Mr. Newberry out on the lawn.”

”Now, here,” Mr. Newberry was saying a little later, waving his hand, ”is where you get what I think the finest view of the place.”

He was standing at the corner of the lawn where it sloped, dotted with great trees, to the banks of the little lake, and was showing Mr. Spillikins the beauties of Castel Casteggio.

Mr. Newberry wore on his short circular person the summer costume of a man taking his ease and careless of dress: plain white flannel trousers, not worth more than six dollars a leg, an ordinary white silk s.h.i.+rt with a rolled collar, that couldn't have cost more than fifteen dollars, and on his head an ordinary Panama hat, say forty dollars.

”By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins, as he looked about him at the house and the beautiful lawn with its great trees, ”it's a lovely place.”

”Isn't it?” said Mr. Newberry. ”But you ought to have seen it when I took hold of it. To make the motor road alone I had to dynamite out about a hundred yards of rock, and then I fetched up cement, tons and tons of it, and boulders to b.u.t.tress the embankment.”

”Did you really!” said Mr. Spillikins, looking at Mr. Newberry with great respect.

”Yes, and even that was nothing to the house itself. Do you know, I had to go at least forty feet for the foundations. First I went through about twenty feet of loose clay, after that I struck sand, and I'd no sooner got through that than, by George! I landed in eight feet of water. I had to pump it out; I think I took out a thousand gallons before I got clear down to the rock. Then I took my solid steel beams in fifty-foot lengths,” here Mr. Newberry imitated with his arms the action of a man setting up a steel beam, ”and set them upright and bolted them on the rock. After that I threw my steel girders across, clapped on my roof rafters, all steel, in sixty-foot pieces, and then just held it easily, just supported it a bit, and let it sink gradually to its place.”

Mr. Newberry ill.u.s.trated with his two arms the action of a huge house being allowed to sink slowly to a firm rest.

”You don't say so!” said Mr. Spillikins, lost in amazement at the wonderful physical strength that Mr. Newberry must have.

”Excuse me just a minute,” broke off Mr. Newberry, ”while I smooth out the gravel where you're standing. You've rather disturbed it, I'm afraid.”

”Oh, I'm awfully sorry,” said Mr. Spillikins.

”Oh, not at all, not at all,” said his host. ”I don't mind in the least. It's only on account of McAlister.”

”Who?” asked Mr. Spillikins.

”My gardener. He doesn't care to have us walk on the gravel paths. It scuffs up the gravel so. But sometimes one forgets.”

It should be said here, for the sake of clearness, that one of the chief glories of Castel Casteggio lay in its servants. All of them, it goes without saying, had been brought from Great Britain. The comfort they gave to Mr. and Mrs. Newberry was unspeakable. In fact, as they themselves admitted, servants of the kind are simply not to be found in America.