queens, I don't know her
either, but that wouldn't prevent my doing her a service. I am sure
she'd rather be driven up to a cup of tea and a fire by an American
than stand here waiting for a postilion and four. It will be nice of
you to speak to her," he suggested, and stepped back.

Gathering up her reins, Mrs. Falconer whisked her horse about and drove
up to the lady's side. Bulstrode, from a little distance, watched her
graceful inclination and heard her lovely voice. He saw Carmen-Magda
lift her disguising veil, displaying her dark, foreign face. Slowly
going up to the dog-cart's side, together with the groom's help, he
bestowed the Queen's belongings in the trap.

"I will walk on slowly up the road," he suggested, "and most possibly
you will send back for me."

"Oh, I'll drive back myself." She was quite certain about it. As he
helped the Queen into the dog-cart, as she leaned on his supporting
hand, she said:

"Thank you, thank you very much indeed." And he was so vain as to
fancy that into tone and words Carmen-Magda put more warmth, more of
meaning, than a woman usually puts into the phrase of recognition of a
man's helping hand. He could not, moreover, have sworn that at the end
of the sentence was not murmured a word in a foreign tongue which might
in Poltavian mean "friend," but as he did not understand the language
of the country he could not be sure.

As he watched the trap up the hedged lanes out of sight, he rubbed his
eyes as if he were not certain whether or not he had not dozed and
dreamed in his compartment on the slow train from London.... But at
any rate he had the delightful heavenly certainty that this was
Westboro' of an Indian summer afternoon--and that of the two women who
had just driven up the lane out of sight, one at least was adorably
real.

THE SEVENTH ADVENTURE

VII

IN WHICH HE BECOMES THE POSSESSOR OF A CERTAIN PIECE OF PROPERTY

As Bulstrode stood in the window of his room at Westboro' Castle, his
face turned toward the country, it seemed to beckon him. It called him
from the park's end where suave and smooth the curving downs met the
preciser contour of the eastern field; from hedges holding snugly in
the roadways, the roads themselves running off on pleasant excursions
to townships whose names are suggestive of romance, whose gentle
beauties have mellowed with the ages which give them value and leave
them perfect.

With the sweetness of a bell, wit