It was an ugly, pretentious room, done in the period of modern satinwood, striped silks and small oil paintings in immense gold frames. Over the mantelpiece hung a portrait of Southgate by Bonnat—a fine, blatant picture, against a red background, of a man in a frock coat with a square beard.
The house was well constructed and the carpets were deep, so that complete silence reigned. Williams walked to the middle window and looked out. It was the end of February and a wild wind was blowing across the Hudson, but even a ruffled dark gray river was more agreeable to look at than the drawing-room. He stood staring out at an empty freighter making her way slowly upstream to her anchorage, until a rustling of new crape garments made him turn, as Miss Southgate entered.
She was tall—her brother had been tall too; nearly six feet; her face was white as alabaster, and her hair, though she was nearly sixty, was still jet black. Her mourning made her seem more majestic than ever, though Williams would have said she could not possibly have been more majestic than she had been the last time he saw her.
His first impression was that she was alone, but a second later he saw that she was followed by a tiny creature, who looked as much out of scale beside Antonia as if the Creator had been experimenting in different sizes of human beings and had somehow got the two sets mixed up—a little blond-headed doll with eyes the color of Delft china. Miss Southgate held out a solid hand, white as a camellia. "I don't think you know my sister-in-law," she said in her deep voice. "A very old friend of Alexander's, my dear—Mr. Williams."
Williams smiled encouragingly in answer, assuming that anything so small must be timid; but little Mrs. Southgate betrayed no symptom of alarm. She bent her slender throat and sat down on the sofa beside Antonia, with her hands, palms up, in her lap. She did it with a certain crispness, like a good child doing what it has been taught as exactly the right thing to do. She sat perfectly still; whereas Antonia kept up a slow, magnificent undulation of shoulders and hips, as Williams took the will out of his pocket.
"You are familiar with the terms of the will?" he asked, scrupulously including both ladies in the question.
"Yes," said Antonia, "my brother discussed the will with me in great detail before he made it, and I told Doris what you had said to me yesterday after the funeral. I think she understands. You do understand, my dear, don't you, that my brother left you the income of his estate during your life?"
Mrs. Southgate nodded, without the least change of expression.
"During her life or until her remarriage," said Williams, giving the word full weight.
"I shall not remarry," said Mrs. Southgate in a quick, sweet, whispering voice—the sort of voice which made everyone lean forward, although it was perfectly audible.