Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/140

132 She took him for a sanitary officer, or a lawyer, come to enforce her expulsion.

"This is a queer hole for a lady to occupy as her boudoir," said Mr. Welsh, taking his pipe out of his mouth. "I wouldn't care for this style of thing myself except as a drawing copy. Not to become a hero of romance, or to give my experience in a magazine article would I sleep under that chimney on a stormy night."

"Nobody has invited you," said Patience, blocking her door.

"And pray, madam, whose house is this? Is this the sort of cottage my lord provides for his tenants?"

"The house is mine."

"Copyhold or freehold?"

"I pay ground rent for it of two shillings; it is mine for life, and then it falls to his lordship."

"I should expect it would fall altogether to you shortly. Why don't you do it up?"

"How can I? I am poor."

"I suppose that you are bound by the terms of the lease to maintain the house in repair?"

"I dare say. The agent, Mr. Macduff, has threatened me; but no one can make me do it when I haven't a shilling. You can't make one dance who is born without legs."

"Then, properly, this house belongs to his lordship. Why does not he do it up? I can make something out of this! A Day in the Country, something to fill a column and a-half in a Monday morning paper. Contrast his lordship's princely residence with the ruins in which he pigs his tenants. Compare Saltren's place, Chillacot, which is his own, all in spic-and-span order, with this, and then a word about the incubus of the great holders on the land, and the advantage of the enfranchisement of the soil. It will do. And so, madam, they have tried to evict you?"

"Yes; the sanitary officer ordered me to leave; the