“Are you not? H’m—I am afraid of you.” He looked about him for some time before he spoke again, then said, “Since I have answered your questions so satisfactorily, will you reciprocate by telling what relation you are to this house?”
“I own it.”
He stared about again before answering.
“Do you? Do you indeed? That is very peculiar. Now, if you had said you owned a corner in heaven, or a bit of fairyland, I should have said: ‘Naturally. I believe you.’ But when ‘a rare and radiant maiden’ appears by magic at midnight, in the midst of—of—er—the village museum, and says ‘I own it’—well, you won’t think me impolite, I hope, if I say you are mistaken?”
“This is not the ‘village museum’! It is my home, and I own it all myself.” She spoke heatedly, because the museum character of Villa Rose was secretly a sore subject with her.
“How interesting. Won’t you be seated? No? As you please. No doubt you feel safer standing—with three doors to escape by. And I dare say if I said ‘booh!’ you’d try to dash through all three of ’em at once.” He walked about slowly, taking different views of the museum’s contents. “Some very good things—and some ... not” he murmured.
“You—you must understand that I—I do not wish to shoot you unless it is quite necessary,” she stammered. “But if it is necessary, I—I do know how to shoot. I—I am not helpless.” She drew herself up and straightened her pistol arm. “I have killed—rabbits!”
“Have you?” He chuckled. “Call me Bunny, but, oh, do not shoot!” At that moment his gaze fell upon the landscape hanging over the desk. “Ah!” he cried, “a Turner—a real Turner!” He strode forward to get a better look at it. His movement brought him close to Rosamond, and, suspecting attack, she thrust her weapon at him with a violent gesture. He threw his hands up over his head but continued to enjoy the picture.
“A beautiful thing. A poem in colour. Turner is the poet’s painter. He not only saw Nature, he listened to her and communed with her, as a poet; then he translated what he heard through colour. Can’t you hear the scarlet trumpets blowing across that sunset?” In speaking he moved back and sidewise, trying different angles of vision, still dutifully keeping his hands up. Presently he turned to her. The light was on his face and she saw how warm and merry his smile was. “That is the only real beauty after all—the beauty of truth. Dear lady, I am sorry I alarm you so. Just see how thoroughly at home I feel.”
“I am not alarmed,” she protested.