"But if you hadn't felt all along I was your kind, if you hadn't had an idea that I was a stray from the original fold, you would never have wanted to go in for me," he explained it.
Flora had her doubts about the truth of this. For a time she had been certain of his belonging to the lawless other fold, and at times she would have gone with him in spite of it, but this last knowledge she withheld. She withheld it because she could make out now, that, for all his seeming wildness, he had no lawless instincts in himself. Generations of great doing and great mixing among men had created him, a creature perfectly natural and therefore eccentric; but the same generations had handed down from father to son the law-abiding instinct of the rulers of the people. He could be careless of the law. He was strong in it. In his own mind he and the law were one. His perception of the relations of life was so complete that he had no further use for the written law; and Farrell Wand's was so limited that he had never found the use for it. Lawless both; but--the two extremes. They might seem to meet--but between those two extremes, between a Chatworth and a Farrell Wand--why, there was all the world's experience between!
She raised her eyes and smiled at him in thinking of it, but the smile faltered and she drew away. They were about to be disturbed. Beyond the rose branches far down the drive she saw a figure moving toward them at a slow, uncertain pace, looking to and fro. "See, there's some one coming."
"Oh, the gardener!" he said as one would say "Oh, fiddlesticks!"
The gardener had been her first thought. But now she rose uneasily, since she saw it was not he, asking herself, "Who else, at such an hour?"
By this time Chatworth, still seated, had caught sight of it. "Hello," he said, "what sort of a thing is that?"
It was a short, shabby, nondescript little figure, shuffling rapidly along the winding walk between the rose bushes. Now they saw the top of his round black felt hat. Now only a twinkling pair of legs. Now, around the last clump of bushes he appeared full length, and, suddenly dropping his businesslike shuffle, approached them at a languid walk.
Flora grasped Chatworth's arm in nervous terror. "Tell him to go," she whispered; "make him go away."