“How very odd—how kind, I mean. I should like to have been civil to him on Frank's account alone.”
“I should see him on business and be civil to him afterwards.” Sir Robert received the American's levity with his usual seriousness.
“No, they must come here for Christmas. His daughter is—?”
“Araminta Eulalie Sharpe,” said Bradley, in defiant memory of Lady Canterbridge.
Sir Robert winced audibly. “I shall rely on you, my dear boy, to help me make it pleasant for them,” he said.
Christmas came, but not Minty. It drew a large contingent from Oldenhurst to the quaint old church, who came to view the green-wreathed monuments, and walls spotted with crimson berries, as if with the blood of former Oldenhurst warriors, and to impress the wondering villagers with the ineffable goodness and bounty of the Creator towards the Lords of Oldenhurst and their friends. Sir Robert, a little gouty, kept the house, and Bradley, somewhat uneasy at the Sharpes' absence, but more distrait with other thoughts, wandered listlessly in the long library. At the lower angle it was embayed into the octagon space of a former tower, which was furnished as a quaint recess for writing or study, pierced through its enormous walls with a lance-shaped window, hidden by heavy curtains. He was gazing abstractedly at the melancholy eyes of Sir Percival, looking down from the dark panel opposite, when he heard the crisp rustle of a skirt. Lady Canterbridge tightly and stiffly buttoned in black from her long narrow boots to her slim, white-collared neck, stood beside him with a prayer-book in her ungloved hand. Bradley colored quickly; the penetrating incense of the Christmas boughs and branches that decked the walls and ceilings, mingled with some indefinable intoxicating aura from the woman at his side, confused his senses. He seemed to be losing himself in some forgotten past coeval with the long, quaintly-lighted room, the rich hangings, and the painted ancestor of this handsome woman. He recovered himself with an effort, and said,
“You are going to church?”
“I may meet them coming home; it's all the same. You like HIM?” she said abruptly, pointing to the portrait. “I thought you did not care for that sort of man over there.”
“A man like that must have felt the impotence of his sacrifice before he died, and that condoned everything,” said Bradley, thoughtfully.
“Then you don't think him a fool? Bob says it was a fair bargain for a title and an office, and that by dying he escaped trial and the confiscation of what he had.”