"What do you mean?" Merrill asked anxiously. "What has happened?"
"Yes," said Ben. "In America, pneumonia."
Grief and joy can inhabit amicably a very small house. But in Merrill's case grief was rather more like pity, and joy a consciousness of release. Only a dazed consciousness, though, at the moment.
"Poor Egbert, poor old Egbert," she murmured. "He didn't have much fun." And then, "Poor Egbert, what a long way to go to die!"
"I suppose I ought to do things," she said.
"Of course," said Ben. "There is so much to do. You must write to his relations. No one knows but you, I believe. You must write to the Bishop about the living. You will have to get clothes."
"I suppose so," said Merrill. "Yes, of course, clothes."
"Well, what do you want done with--with Egbert? Sometimes they embalm----"
"Oh, no, he must be buried there," said Merrill. "Not here. Dying so far away, he must be buried far away. He had no real interest in this place. Some day, perhaps, I might go over there and see his grave. Where was it?"
"Yes, he was to lecture there," said Merrill.
"Some day--oh," she exclaimed, "I must let Captain Andrews know!"
Merrill looked at her. "That's why he sent the chauffeur," she said. "I see." Her perplexity gave way for a moment to a smile.
"Say," said the American, addressing Mr. Jack Harford, and stooping to pat that casual tradesman's inseparable companion, "is this a dog fancier's or a book store?"
"We sell books and water-colours," said Jack; "or, at least, we keep a stock of books. But this spaniel belongs to me and is not for sale."
"I'm sorry," said the American. "I was looking for a flea-trap. But what about this 'Beck and Call' sign. How can I get there? I've got some questions to ask. Is it a good place?"
"Very," said Jack. "The office is run by a Miss Staveley, and she seems to give satisfaction. But it depends rather on what you want. Through the shop and up the stairs."
"I'll try," said the American. "These chancey things often pan out best."
He ascended the stairs, and after Jan had, in Dolly's phrase, passed the rule over him, he was admitted to Ben.
"My name's Barclay Corbet," he began. "I see you solve Domestic Problems, so perhaps you can solve mine. This is what I'm becking and calling about: I want to spend a few weeks in real England. Not the England that most of my countrymen are shown, but something that you'd call essentially 'old world.' Don't mention a cathedral," he added hastily; "I've had all the cathedrals I want and all the vergers. Don't mention a watering place, or the Dukeries, or anything like that. Don't mention Oxford or Cambridge. And above all don't mention Stratford-on-Avon. I want retirement. What I want is a place where there's no railway within miles, no corrugated iron roofs, no waiters in clawhammer coats, but pretty waiting-maids named Kate and Lucy instead, and no boys calling winners. And I want there to be a saddler in it making saddles in the midst of the smell of leather, and a churchyard with the graves all crooked and all over moss. And spaniels; yes, there must be spaniels. And another thing, a rookery. Can you do this?"