It was
indeed a pretty little house of red brick, dating from the first quarter
of the nineteenth century and like so many houses of that period built
close to the road, surrounded too on three sides by a verandah of iron
and copper in the pagoda style, thoroughly ugly, but by reason of the
mellow peacock hues time had given its roof, full of personality and
charm. They entered by a green door in the brick wall and crossed a
lawn sloping down to the little river to reach the shade of a tulip tree
in full bloom, where seated in one of those tall wicker garden chairs
shaped like an alcove was an elderly lady as ugly as Priapus.
"There's Lady Landells, who's a poetess, you know," said Sir Charles
gravely.
Mark accepted the information with equal gravity. He was still
unsophisticated enough to be impressed at hearing a woman called a
poetess.
"Mr. Lidderdale is going to have lunch with us, Lady Landells," Sir
Charles announced.
"Oh, is he?" Lady Landells replied in a cracked murmur of complete
indifference.
"He's a great admirer of your poems," added Sir Charles, hearing which
Lady Landells looked at Mark with her cod's eyes and by way of greeting
offered him two fingers of her left hand.
"I can't read him any of my poems to-day, Charles, so pray don't ask me
to do so," the poetess groaned.
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