The picture-gallery, of which she had heard a great deal, fascinated her at once. It was a long but not very lofty apartment, receiving daylight from a hidden source, hung with the finest examples of the four great Italian schools which flourished during the first half of the sixteenth century: the Venetian, a revel of colour; the Roman, dignified and even sedate; the Florentine, nobly grandiose; and the school of Parma, mysteriously delicate. Opportunity serving, she spent much of her time here, talking busily to the madonnas, the Christs, the martyred saints, the monarchs, the knights, the lovely ladies, and all the naïve mediæval crowd, giving each of them a part in her own infantile romances. When she grew older, she copied—who shall say whether consciously or unconsciously?—the attitudes and gestures of the women; and perhaps in time there passed into Adeline, by some ineffable channel, at least a portion of their demure grace and contented quietude. There were pictures also in the square library, examples of quite modern English and French work, sagaciously chosen by one whose critical faculty had descended to him through four generations of collectors; but Adeline had no eyes for these. The books, however, gorgeous prisoners in glass, were her good friends, though she might never touch them, and though the narrow, conventional girl's education assiduously bestowed upon her by her aunt in person, stifled rather than fostered curiosity with regard to their contents.
When Adeline was about nineteen, her guardian became engaged to be married to a middle-aged farmer, a tenant of the Abbey, who made it clear that in espousing Aunt Grace he was not eager to espouse Aunt Grace's protégée also. A serious question arose as to her future. She had only one other relative in England, Mr. Aked, and she passively accepted his timely suggestion that she should go to London and keep house for him.
CHAPTER XVI
On the Wednesday evening Richard took tea at the Crabtree, so that he might go down by train to Parson's Green direct from Charing Cross. The coffee-room was almost empty of customers; and Miss Roberts, who appeared to be in attendance there, was reading in the "cosy corner," an angle of the room furnished with painted mirrors and a bark bench of fictitious rusticity.
"What are you doing up here?" he asked, when she brought his meal. "Aren't you cashier downstairs any longer?"
"Oh, yes," she said, "I should just think I was. But the girl that waits in this room, Miss Pratt, has her half-holiday on Wednesdays, and I come here, and the governor takes my place downstairs. I do it to oblige him. He's a gentleman, he is. That polite! I have my half-holiday on Fridays."
"Well, if you've nothing else to do, what do you say to pouring out my tea for me?"