She gave a cry of approval.
“I thought that you would have a stream near your house,” she said, “and I did not dare ask if you have a lake in case you said ‘no’ and I would have been disappointed.”
“I am hoping that you will not be disappointed at anything you find,” the Duke replied. “I have loved every inch of my home ever since I was born and so you cannot praise it too much as far as I am concerned.”
“Of course I will praise it because it is polite and I would hate you to be disappointed with my views. But now I can do it with joy and excitement simply because as far as I can see you have everything I have ever wanted to see in a big ancestral house.”
She was looking as she spoke at the Tower, which was at one end of the building.
Even as she did so the Duke’s standard was run u
