James might have been saying to
himself: 'I don't know--life's a tough job.'
In this position Bosinney surprised him.
James brought his eyes down from whatever bird's-nest they had been
looking for in the sky to Bosinney's face, on which was a kind of
humorous scorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Forsyte? Come down to see for yourself?"
It was exactly what James, as we know, had come for, and he was made
correspondingly uneasy. He held out his hand, however, saying:
"How are you?" without looking at Bosinney.
The latter made way for him with an ironical smile.
James scented something suspicious in this courtesy. "I should like
to walk round the outside first," he said, "and see what you've been
doing!"
A flagged terrace of rounded stones with a list of two or three inches
to port had been laid round the south-east and south-west sides of the
house, and ran with a bevelled edge into mould, which was in preparation
for being turfed; along this terrace James led the way.
"Now what did this cost?" he asked, when he saw the terrace extending
round the corner.
"What should you think?" inquired Bosinney.
"How should I know?" replied James somewhat nonplussed; "two or three
hundred, I dare say!"
"The exact sum!"
James gave him a sharp look, but the architect appeared unconscious, and
he put the answer down to mishearing.
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