"Ah!"

A calm rarefied voice was heard from the door of the omnibus:

"Now, Geoff!"

The Hon. Geoffrey Winlow followed his wife, Mr. Foxleigh, and General
Pendyce into the omnibus, and again Mrs. Winlow's voice was heard:

"Oh, do you mind my maid? Get in, Tookson!"

Mr. Horace Pendyce's mansion, white and long and low, standing
well within its acres, had come into the possession of his
great-great-great-grandfather through an alliance with the last of the
Worsteds. Originally a fine property let in smallish holdings to tenants
who, having no attention bestowed on them, did very well and paid
excellent rents, it was now farmed on model lines at a slight loss. At
stated intervals Mr. Pendyce imported a new kind of cow, or partridge,
and built a wing to the schools. His income was fortunately independent
of this estate. He was in complete accord with the Rector and the
sanitary authorities, and not infrequently complained that his tenants
did not stay on the land. His wife was a Totteridge, and his coverts
admirable. He had been, needless to say, an eldest son. It was his
individual conviction that individualism had ruined England, and he had
set himself deliberately to eradicate this vice from the character of
his tenants. By substituting for their individualism his own tastes,
plans, and sentiments, one might almost say his own individualism, and
losing money thereby, he had gone far to demonstrate his pet theory that
the higher the individualism the more sterile the life of the community.
If, however, the matter was thus put to him he grew both garrulous