“Can’t you see your way to do it for eight thousand after all? There must be a lot of little things you could alter.”

Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and answered:

“Not one!”

Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible point of personal vanity.

“Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation; “you must have it your own way, I suppose.”

A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames rose too, to see him off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high spirits. After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames returned moodily to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting away the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of curiosity, he asked:

“Well, what do you think of the Buccaneer?”