He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he described as “spacious”; but fell into such raptures as he permitted to a man of his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which he descended by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light.

“You’ll have room here,” he said, “for six or seven hundred dozen⁠—a very pooty little cellar!”

Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from the copse below, Swithin came to a stop.

“There’s a fine view from here,” he remarked; “you haven’t such a thing as a chair?”

A chair was brought him from Bosinney’s tent.

“You go down,” he said blandly; “you two! I’ll sit here and look at the view.”

He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with one hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other planted on his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing with its flat top the pale square of his face; his stare, very blank, fixed on the landscape.

He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields. He was, indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of reflection. The air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the prospect a fine one, a remarka.⁠ ⁠… His head fell a little to one side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd! He⁠—ah! They were waving to him from the bottom! He put up his hand, and moved it more than once. They were active⁠—the prospect was remar.⁠ ⁠… His head fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it fell to the right. It remained there; he was asleep.

And asleep, a sentinel on the top of the rise, he appeared to rule over this prospect⁠—remarkable⁠—like some image blocked out by the special artist, of primeval Forsytes in pagan days, to record the domination of mind over matter!