"What, again?" said I, staring at the breakfast-cup which Jill was offering me, that I might pass it to Daphne. "How many more cups is he going to drink? He's had three to my knowledge."
"That vessel," said Berry, "was passed to you for information and immediate action. So, as they say in the Army, close your perishin' head and get down to it."
"What you want," said I, "is a bucket. Or a private urn."
"What's the matter with a trough?" said Jonah. "That'd be more in keeping."
Berry turned to Adèle.
"You see?" he said. "Two putrid minds with but a single snort. But there you are. Don't dwell on it. Pass the marmalade instead." He turned to his wife. "And what's the programme for to-day? The glass has gone up, it's already raining, 'all's right with the world.' Anybody like to play ping-pong?"
"Fool," said his wife. "As a matter of fact, I don't think it would be a bad idea if we went over to Broken Ash for tea." Berry made a grimace, and Jill and I groaned. Even Jonah looked down his nose at the suggestion. "Yes," my sister continued, "I didn't think it'd be a popular move, but I'd like Adèle to see the pictures, and we haven't shown a sign of life since we left Town."
At Broken Ash lived the other branch of the Pleydell family, consisting of our Cousin Vandy and his two sisters. Between them and us there was little love lost. Of their jealousy of Berry, but for whose birth White Ladies would have passed into their hands, they made but an open secret; and, when he married my sister, who was his second cousin, and the Mansels—Cousins Jonah and Jill—had thrown in their lot with us, relations had become more strained than before. The conventions were, however, observed. Calendars were exchanged at Christmas, birthdays were recognized with a cold epistolary nod, and occasional calls were paid and invitations issued. Their possession of all but two of the family portraits was undoubted, and with nine points of the law in their favour they were well armed. It was an open question whether the tenth point, which was ours, was sufficiently doughty to lay the other nine by the heels. Years ago counsel had advised that the law was dead in our favour, but it was certain that Vandy and his sisters would resist any claim we made with great bitterness, and the settlement of a family quarrel in the public ring of the High Court was more than we could stomach.
Still, the pictures were worth seeing. There were a Holbein, a Van Dyck, three Gainsboroughs, and two from the brush of Reynolds among them, and, so soon as she had learned of their existence, Adèle had evinced an eagerness to be shown the collection.
There was a moment's silence. Then—