“His name is Richards, sir—or, rather, he says he is known to you by that name—and he is very emphatic about seeing you—and, begging your pardon, sir, a little insolent. He says that his business is of the utmost importance.”
I repeated the message and stood as though turned to stone. Was my fancy playing tricks with me in the dimly-lit room, or had Mr. Ravenor’s face really become ghastly and livid, like the face of a man who sees the phantom shadows of a hideous nightmare passing before his fixed gaze? I closed my eyes for a moment’s relief and looked again. Surely it had been fancy! Mr. Ravenor was writing with only a slight frown upon his calm, serene face.
“Let Mr. Richards—or whatever the fellow’s name is—be given to understand that I distinctly refuse to see him,” he said quietly. “If he has any business with me he can write.”
I repeated this and then took up my cap to go. Mr. Ravenor put down his pen and walked with me to the door. I had expected that he would have offered me his hand, but he did not. He nodded, kindly enough and held the door open while I passed out. So I went.
As I walked across the great hall on my way out I came face to face with Lady Silchester, who was thoughtfully contemplating one of a long line of oil-paintings dark with age, yet vivid still with the marvellous colouring of an old master. To my surprise she stopped me.
“Are you a judge of pictures, Mr. Morton?” she asked. “I was wondering whether that was a genuine Reynolds.” And she pointed to the picture which she had been examining.
I shook my head, briefly acknowledging that I knew nothing whatever about them. I was quite conscious at the time that the question was only a feint. What was a farmer’s son likely to know of the old masters?
“Ah, never mind!” she remarked, shutting up her eyeglasses with a snap. “I can ask Mr. Ravenor this evening. I thought, perhaps, that as you were here so often he might have talked to you about them. I know that he is very proud of his pictures.”
“Had I been here often he might have done so,” I answered. “As it happens, however, this is my first visit to Ravenor Castle.”
“Indeed? And yet Mr. Ravenor seems to take a great interest in you. Why?”