“I wonder why you British folk can’t use simple ordinary English for simple ordinary everyday appliances,” said Chester Royde. “Well, I’ve given you a rough idea of what we’d want. Give me a rough idea of what it would cost.”

“Certainly not a penny less than forty thousand pounds,” said the architect. “Transport would be tremendous up here. Oh, I’m afraid my idea is just fantastic.”

“Why?” Chester Royde snapped again.

“Well, the cost.”

“Don’t bother about the cost. If you can satisfy me you have a proposition that will give me value for my money I’m not worrying about the cost. How long will it take to build?”

“At least eighteen months, and even to get it finished in that time would increase the cost.”

“How do you like this house, Carrie?” her husband asked.

“I think it might be wonderful,” she answered a little vaguely, for she was thinking about Alan’s obvious disappointment over Myrtle.

“See here, Mr Menzies. You get to work on a more detailed proposition on the lines indicated, and if Mrs Royde and I approve your design you can obtain an estimate from a builder. I don’t want you to go beyond three hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s about sixty thousand pounds,” the architect murmured in a voice that sounded like the voice of one in dreamland.

“Just about,” Chester Royde agreed.

Robert Menzies passed a hand across his brow. He had an idea that it was damp. It was.

“I’ll get to work on the plans right away, Mr Royde,” he said hoarsely, for the moisture on his brow had escaped there from his throat.

“That’s fine,” said Chester Royde. Then he turned to his wife. “I guess we don’t want to talk about this old lodge. It just wants pulling down as soon as possible.”

The architect suggested showing a few more of his sketches, but Royde dismissed the notion.

“No, you concentrate on this little place you have in your mind. I believe it’s going to be good. I’ve taken a fancy to it already. And mind, Mr Menzies, that dungeon must be the toughest thing in dungeons ever built.”

Alan Macmillan came into the room and Carrie told him that she and Myrtle would be up soon; but he was obviously still too much disappointed by Myrtle’s failure to reach Knocknacolly to-day on account of her date with Young Ben Nevis to respond to so vague a date as ‘soon.’

“What’s the matter with you, Alan?” asked Robert Menzies when the Roydes had left.

“Oh, just a feeling that life is a blind alley, that’s all,” Alan replied morosely.