Page:Hare and Tortoise (1925).pdf/156

 Dare is to be thanked. Don't you think he has done us rather well?"

The two women agreed in chorus. Then Alice added, "Father couldn't believe his eyes. He remembered the lake from a hunting trip years and years ago. But when he saw what you and Mr. Dare and Keble have made of it,—my dear, he almost wants it back!"

"My husband said you had made the house look like a natural part of the landscape, Mr. Dare," Lady Eveley leaned towards him with her timidly maternal, confidential, richly reiterated little smile. Louise concluded that her individuality, at its most positive, was never more than an echo of some other person's individuality, usually her husband's.

"Most houses are so irrelevant to their surroundings," Alice interposed. "Our place in Sussex for instance. Of course it has been there since the beginning of time, and that excuses it, but it's fearsome to look at, and would be in any landscape. I wish Mr. Dare would wave his wand over it."

"Alice thinks Keblestone too antiquated," explained Lady Eveley. "But her father and I are deeply attached to it, and she and Keble were both born there. I do hope you will come and stay with us there next summer, with the baby."

"That priceless baby!" Alice exclaimed. "He pulled the most excruciating faces for us. Then I gave him a beautiful rubber elephant and he flung it square at his nurse's eyes,—nearly blinded the poor