Alistair walked past the lights of Palace Yard, and turned into the broad avenue of Parliament Street, bordered by the vast offices of the British Empire. When he had gone half-way to Charing Cross, he turned aside again, and presently found himself in front of a high and sombre house, one of a row whose windows overlooked the river and the bridge. It stood back in a bleak garden enclosed in tall iron railings, where nothing grew but grass and trees and ivy, all of the same shade of soot-encrusted green. This was Colonsay house, a relic of the days when the Thames had been a glorious highway between the cities of London and Westminster, a highway lined with the dwellings of great nobles, and bright with painted barges and fluttering banners.
Now a slight air of decay hung over the old house, and it seemed conscious that it had outlived its generation. The tide no longer washed the foot of its lawn, and rich brocades and jewelled sword-hilts no longer sparkled under its trees. It stood there with its few neighbours, isolated among the encroaching buildings of a newer age, and waiting its own turn to be devoured.
Stuart hesitated for a moment as he stood outside the door. There had been a time when he would have walked through that door as of right. But it was long since he had lived under his brother’s roof, and more than a year since he had passed this doorway last. During the time that he had been living in Chelsea he had shunned all intercourse with his family. His mother had written to him more than once, but her letters had remained unanswered. The letters were entreaties to him to abandon the woman who was dragging him down, and he had not abandoned her.
He raised his hand to the bell, and jerked it roughly. Then he stood waiting, half ashamed to encounter the gaze of his brother’s servants, and resenting their curiosity in advance.
“Is the Duke in?” he asked of the man who opened the door. He had no wish to meet his brother that night.
In the first moment the footman did not recognize his questioner. The next his face lit up with an expression of respectful sympathy.
“No, my lord; his Grace is at the House of Lords. But will your lordship come in?”
As he threw the door wider the butler, an old family retainer, stepped forward. His face wore the same expression as the footman’s, a little less subdued, and he ventured on a word of welcome.
“I hope I see your lordship well? Her Grace is upstairs, and I believe would be very glad to see your lordship.”
“Very well, Stokes,” said Stuart shortly, giving the footman his hat and stick. “I’ll go up.”