They had never had any fears before Van Diemen
arrived, and caused them to give thrice their ordinary number of dinners
to guests per annum. In fact, before Van Diemen came, the house on the
beach looked on Crikswich without a rival to challenge its anticipated
lordship over the place, and for some inexplicable reason it seemed to
its inhabitants to have been a safer as well as a happier residence.
They were consoled by Tinman's performance of a clever stroke in
privately purchasing the cottages west of the town, and including
Crickledon's shop, abutting on Marine Parade. Then from the house
on the beach they looked at an entire frontage of their property.
They entered the month of February. No further time was to be lost,
"or we shall wake up to find that man has fooled us," Mrs. Cavely said.
Tinman appeared at Elba to demand a private interview with Annette. His
hat was blown into the hall as the door opened to him, and he himself was
glad to be sheltered by the door, so violent was the gale. Annette and
her father were sitting together. They kept the betrothed gentleman
waiting a very long time. At last Van Diemen went to him, and said,
"Netty 'll see you, if you must. I suppose you have no business with
me?"
"Not to-day," Tinman replied.
Van Diemen strode round the drawing-room with his hands in his pockets.
"There's a disparity of ages," he said, abruptly, as if desirous to pour
out his lesson while he remembered it. "A man upwards of forty marries a
girl under twenty, he's over sixty before she's forty; he's decaying when
she's only mellow.
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