down in, not to move about in,
for the levels of the floor were precarious, and a sudden step would
easily disconcert those who tried to make a promenade of it. It was as
inactive in tendency as the garden.

Outside the house was charmingly irregular. The billiard-room with the
bedrooms above it was so markedly Queen Anne that it was impossible to
believe it could be Queen Anne. Nor was it, for it was Queen Victoria.
Then came the cottage section, which had a thatched roof, on which grew
wallflowers and the pink pincushions of valerian, and following that was
a low, stern line of building containing kitchens and servants' rooms,
which made no pretence to be anything except that which it was.

But over pseudo-Queen Anne, genuine George I. cottages, and frankly
Edwardian kitchens, there rose a riot of delectable vegetation. White
jasmine and yellow jasmine strove together like first cousins who hate
each other, jackmanni and tropaeolum were rival beauties, and rambler
roses climbed indifferently about, made friends where they could, and
when they found themselves unable, firmly stabbed their enemies and
strangled their remains.

Charming, however, as it all was, it had no mood to suggest. It but
accentuated the moods of those who came there, and by its very
vagueness and softness reflected the spirits of its visitors. It
was impossible to imagine a place more conducive to foster and
cherish a man's inclinations; to the lover it would be a place ideal
for a honeymoon, to the studious an admirable study. In the Italian
phrase the whole place was _simpatico_; it repeated and crooned over
to every one the mood in which he came to it. And if a lover would
find it an adorable setting for his beloved and himself, so, too, it
would mock and rail in sympathy with one who was cynical and bitter.
But since most people are not in any particular mood, and when they
come into the country require light and agreeable diversion, Lord
Nottingham had been quite right in providing so ample a
billiard-room, so engaging a library, so varied a fleet of
river-craft.

Daisy and Gladys had come down here the day before Lady Nottingham
and the rest of the party were to arrive, and they found plenty to
occupy them. The house had not been used since Easter, and wore
that indescribable look of uninhabitableness which results from a
thorough house-cleaning. Everything, even in the irregular hall,
looked angular and uncomfortable; chairs were set