Una did not answer; she had been looking round the room at the pictures, mostly portraits, on the walls.
“Are these pictures of friends of yours?” she said. “Who is that?”
“That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking of in the train. That is Ralph—Squire Davenant—when he was a young man.”
It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best—and worst—days. It had been painted when men wore their hair long, and brushed from their foreheads. One hand, white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, the other held a riding-whip.
Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, impressed by her long silence, rose and stood beside her.
“Yes,” she said, “that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted when he was about your age, my dear. Ah——”
“What is the matter?”
Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror from one of the tables and held it in front of Una.
“Look!” she exclaimed.
“Well?” she said.