To the right lay the riverside garden, a bright patch of delicate spring colouring and green verdure, bounded by the slow-moving grey waters of the Thames; and Dering's eager eyes travelled on till he saw, detaching itself against an April afternoon horizon, the irregular mass of building formed by Lambeth Palace and the Lollards' Tower.
"I say," he exclaimed, rather suddenly, "this is better than Bedford Park, eh? I suppose a floor in one of these houses would cost us a tremendous lot; even beyond _our_ means, Wingfield?" and again a happy smile came over the tense, clear-cut face, still full of youthful glow and enthusiasm.
"You wish everything to go to Louise? All right, I'll make a note of that."
The speaker, a round-faced, slightly bald, shrewd-looking lawyer, took no notice of the, to him, absurd question concerning the rent of floors in Abingdon Street. Still, he looked indulgently at his friend, as he added:
"But wait a bit,--I promise that yours shall be a model will,--only you seem to have forgotten, my dear fellow, that you may out-live your wife. Now, should you have the misfortune to lose Louise, to whom would you wish to devise this fifteen thousand pounds? It's possible, too, though not very probable, I admit, that you may both die at the same time--both be killed in a railway accident for instance."
"Such good fortune may befall us----" Dering spoke quite simply, and accepted the other's short laugh with great good-humour. "Oh! you know what I mean; I always _have_ thought husbands and wives--who care, I mean--ought to die on the same day. That they don't do so is one of the many strange mysteries which complicate life. But I say, Wingfield----"
The speaker had turned away from the window. He had again taken up his stand opposite the other's broad writing table, and not even the cheap, ill-made clothes could hide the graceful lines of the tall, active figure, not even the turned-down collar and orange silk tie could destroy the young man's look of rather subtle distinction.
"Failing Louise, I should like this money, at my death, to be divided equally between the young Hintons and your kids," and as the other made a gesture of protest, Dering added quickly: