"I've been learning all sorts of tricks here,
and getting myself into your ways of life. It's all
been good training. In every way I'm a better man than I was."
They had descended from the terrace to a garden path,
and approached now a long glass structure, through the
panes of which masses of soft colour--whites, yellows,
pinks, mauves, and strange dull reds--were dimly perceptible.
"The chrysanthemums are not up to much this year,"
Edith observed, as they drew near to the door of this house.
"Collins did them very badly--as he did most other things.
But next year it will be very different. Gafferson is the
best chrysanthemum man in England. That is he in there now,
I think."
Thorpe stopped short, and stared at her, the while the
suggestions stirred by the sound of this name slowly
shaped themselves.
"Gafferson?" he asked her, with a blank countenance.
"My new head-gardener," she explained. "He was at Hadlow,
and after poor old Lady Plowden died--why, surely you
remember him there. You spoke about him--you'd known him
somewhere--in the West Indies, wasn't it?"
He looked into vacancy with the aspect of one stupefied.
"Did I?" he mumbled automatically.
Then, with sudden decision, he swung round on the gravel.
"I've got a kind of headache coming on," he said. "If you
don't mind, we won't go inside among the flowers.
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