Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/48

 golf-bags, these things were scattered about the naked bare platform. The wind came in from the sea and sported everywhere, flipping at the stout lady's skirts, laughing at the elegant sportsmen's thin calves, mocking at the pouting Pekinese. It was fresh and lovely: all the cornfields were waving invitation.

It was characteristic of Harkness that a fancied haughty glance from the sportsmen's eye decided him. He's laughing at my clothes, Harkness thought. How was it that Englishmen wore old things so carelessly and yet were never wrong? Harkness bought his clothes from the best London tailors, but they were always finally a little hostile. They never surrendered to his personality, keeping their own proud reserve.

I'll walk, he thought suddenly. He found a young porter who, in anxious fashion, so unlike American porters who were always so superior to the luggage that they conveyed, was wheeling magnificent trunks on a very insecure barrow.

"These two boxes of mine," Harkness said, stopping him. "I want to walk over to Treliss. Can they be sent over?"

"Happen they can," said the young porter doubtfully.

"They are labeled to the 'Man-at-Arms' Hotel," Harkness said.

"They'll be there as soon as you will," said the