'You have a practice, I suppose, sir?'
'I am not in practice just yet.'
'Just beginning?'
'I am about to begin.'
'In London, or near here?'
'In London probably.'
'H'm.... I am practising in Markton.'
'Indeed. Have you been at it long?'
'Not particularly. I designed the chapel built by this lady's late father; it was my first undertaking--I owe my start, in fact, to Mr. Power. Ever build a chapel?'
'Never. I have sketched a good many churches.'
'Ah--there we differ. I didn't do much sketching in my youth, nor have I time for it now. Sketching and building are two different things, to my mind. I was not brought up to the profession--got into it through sheer love of it. I began as a landscape gardener, then I became a builder, then I was a road contractor. Every architect might do worse than have some such experience. But nowadays 'tis the men who can draw pretty pictures who get recommended, not the practical men. Young prigs win Institute medals for a pretty design or two which, if anybody tried to build them, would fall down like a house of cards; then they get travelling studentships and what not, and then they start as architects of some new school or other, and think they are the masters of us experienced ones.'
While Somerset was reflecting how far this statement was true, he heard the voice of Paula inquiring, 'Who can he be?'
Her eyes were bent on the window. Looking out, Somerset saw in the mead beyond the dry ditch, Dare, with his photographic apparatus.
'He is the young gentleman who called about taking views of the castle,' said Charlotte.
'O yes--I remember; it is quite right. He met me in the village and asked me to suggest him some views. I thought him a respectable young fellow.'
'I think he is a Canadian,' said Somerset.
'No,' said Paula, 'he is from the East--at least he implied so to me.'
'There is Italian blood in him,' said Charlotte brightly. 'For he spoke to me with an Italian accent. But I can't think whether he is a boy or a man.'
'It is to be earnestly hoped that the gentleman does not prevaricate,' said the minister, for the first time attracted by the subject. 'I accidentally met him in the lane, and he said something to me about having lived in Malta. I think it was Malta, or Gibraltar--even if he did not say that he was born there.'