Certainly the
world has changed a good deal since I was a young man, and I do not
think it has changed much for the better. But you will want your
luncheon; it is hungry work talking about foreclosures." Mr. Quest had
not used this unpleasant word, but the Squire had seen his drift.
"Come into the next room," and he led the way to the drawing-room,
where Ida was sitting reading the /Times/.
"Ida," he said, with an affectation of heartiness which did not,
however, deceive his daughter, who knew how to read every change of
her dear father's face, "here is Mr. Quest. Take him in to luncheon,
my love. I will come presently. I want to finish a note."
Then he returned to the vestibule and sat down in his favourite old
oak chair.
"Ruined," he said to himself. "I can never get the money as things
are, and there will be a foreclosure. Well, I am an old man and I hope
that I shall not live to see it. But there is Ida. Poor Ida! I cannot
bear to think of it, and the old place too, after all these
generations--after all these generations!"
CHAPTER X
THE TENNIS PARTY
Ida shook hands coldly enough with the lawyer, for whom she cherished
a dislike not unmixed with fear. Many women are by nature gifted with
an extraordinary power of intuition which fully makes up for their
deficiency in reasoning force.
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