Mrs. Falkener refused to lighten the tone of the conversation. She shook her head.
"No," she said, "no. I'm afraid even a good maid would not help. In fact, to speak plainly, my dear Burton—"
But at this moment the door opened and Tucker came in. His hair was somewhat rumpled by the wind, his hands were still in his pockets as he had had them during his constitutional on the front porch, and his eyes, contracted by the sudden light, looked almost white.
"Well," he said, "are you enjoying this musical party downstairs?"
All three listened in silence, and could hear the strains of "Home, Sweet Home" coming from below.
"They have a phonograph and they are singing in parts," said Tucker, as if this somehow made it worse.
"If we got Miss Falkener down, we might do something ourselves," said Crane, but there was nothing frivolous in his manner when he rang and told Smithfield there was too much noise downstairs.
Smithfield begged pardon and had not a notion it could be heard upstairs. Crane said the boy's, Brindlebury's, tenor carried some distance, and, Mrs. Falkener and Tucker having gone, he added that the house could be shut for the night.
Then he went to the table, and his eye fell again upon the miniature in the pearl frame. He took it up. There was no doubt about it, there was an extraordinary likeness to Jane-Ellen. He smiled to himself. How very charming she would look, he thought, in a mauve ball dress.
Raising his eyes, he found Smithfield looking at him with an expression he did not thoroughly like.