Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/35

Adventures of Major Brown "Sit down," said the lady; but she did not turn her head.

She was a graceful, green-clad figure, with fiery red hair and a flavor of Bedford Park. "You have come, I suppose," she said, mournfully, to tax me about the hateful title-deeds."

"I have come, madam," he said, to know what is the matter—to know why my name is written across your garden. Not amicably, either."

He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny garden scene, the frame for a stunning and brutal personality. The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place where the little flowers he studied cried to Heaven for his blood.

"You know I must not turn round," said the lady; "every afternoon till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street."

Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier resolute to accept these outrageous riddles without surprise. 21