out if they wanted to stay, when there wasn't a decent house in the
place to turn them into. He would have to make this very clear to Mrs.
Levitt.

Not that he approved of Ballinger. The fellow, one of his best farm
hands, had behaved infamously, first of all demanding preposterous
wages, and then, just because Mr. Waddington had refused to be
brow-beaten, leaving his service for Colonel Grainger's. Colonel
Grainger had behaved infamously, buying Foss Bank with the money he had
made in high explosives, and then letting fly his confounded Socialism
all over the county. Knowing nothing, mind you, about local conditions,
and actually raising the rate of wages without consulting anybody, and
upsetting the farm labourers for miles round. At a time when the
prosperity of the entire country depended on the farmers. Still, Mr.
Waddington was not the man to take a petty revenge on his inferiors. He
didn't blame Ballinger; he blamed Colonel Grainger. He would like to see
Grainger boycotted by the whole county.

The door opened. He strode forward and found himself holding out a
sudden, fervid hand to a lady who was not Mrs. Levitt. He drew up,
turning his gesture into a bow, rather unnecessarily ceremonious; but he
could not annihilate instantaneously all that fervour.

"I am Mrs. Levitt's sister, Mrs. Rickards. Mr. Waddington, is it not?
I'll tell Elise you're here. I know she'll be glad to see you. She has
been very much upset."

She remained standing before him long enough for him to be aware of a
projecting bust, of white serge, of smartness, of purplish copper hair,
a raking panama's white brim, of eyebrows, a rouged smile, and a smell