He expected her, perhaps, to be
overcome with gratitude; instead of which she gave him a not unneeded
lesson in manners, advising him that a person of so much importance should
not demean himself by blowing his own trumpet.
In the sitting-room over the shop was no attraction for Charles Gibbon,
Deleah's light figure and darling face being absent from it. He could
afford a house very well now. Not the grand house of which Deleah had
spoken, but one which would suffice to his modest wants. A house with a
big garden beyond, where, supposing a lady ever came to live there who was
fond of flowers, roses might be grown, honeysuckle, jessamine trained. A
garden where a bower could be constructed large enough for two who could
eat their strawberries there, in season, or drink a glass of wine there,
on a Sunday afternoon. Far out of the town, for choice, on a road at whose
gate some one might stand watching the departure of the master, as he went
to work in the morning, welcoming him when he returned at night.
In his spare hours he occupied himself in looking for such a retreat, and
when the ideal one was found he left his rooms in Bridge Street and went
to live there.
George Boult took the trouble to walk out one Sunday afternoon to the
little trellis-covered house, a mile and a half away from the town, and
discovered the junior partner in his shirt-sleeves rolling the gravel of
the back-garden.
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