Strong and upright, with hazel eyes and dark eyebrows, pinkish-brown
cheeks, a forehead white, well-shaped, and getting high, with greyish
hair glossy and well-brushed, and a trim moustache, he might have been
taken for that colonel of Volunteers which indeed he was in a fair way
of becoming.
His wife had followed him out under the porch, and stood bracing her
supple body clothed in lilac linen. Red rambler roses formed a sort
of crown to her dark head; her ivory-coloured face had in it just a
suggestion of the Japanese.
Mr. Bosengate spoke through the whirr of the engine:
"I don't expect to be late, dear. This business is ridiculous. There
oughtn't to be any crime in these days."
His wife--her name was Kathleen--smiled. She looked very pretty and
cool, Mr. Bosengate thought. To him bound on this dull and stuffy
business everything he owned seemed pleasant--the geranium beds beside
the gravel drive, his long, red-brick house mellowing decorously in its
creepers and ivy, the little clock-tower over stables now converted to
a garage, the dovecote, masking at the other end the conservatory
which adjoined the billiard-room. Close to the red-brick lodge his two
children, Kate and Harry, ran out from under the acacia trees, and waved
to him, scrambling bare-legged on to the low, red, ivy-covered wall
which guarded his domain of eleven acres.
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