“Sorry,” he apologised. “I am pretty good at faces, as a rule, and I never thought I could make a mistake about this one. Glad to hear you are a neighbour, Mr. Johnson. We shall find the others in here.”
He threw open the door of the library and ushered in his companion. His father and uncle were talking together with their coffee cups in their hands. They abandoned their conversation precipitately as the door opened.
“I was afraid,” Sir Bertram said, “that Gregory was commencing to show you the pictures. You would find that rather a lengthy undertaking.”
“An undertaking which would interest me very much,” Mr. Johnson declared. “I understand that one day a week visitors are permitted to see over the Hall. I shall venture to present myself with the crowd.”
“There is no necessity for you to do anything of the sort,” Sir Bertram assured him. “My housekeeper will be glad to show you over at any time. Some of the paintings in the gallery are generally considered to be quite worth inspection, and our tapestries are famous. The chapel has a screen which, personally, I think the most beautiful in Norfolk. Perhaps you would care to see it after you have drunk your coffee.”
“I should like to very much,” Mr. Johnson confessed.
Sir Bertram remained a courteous but reserved host, Henry, with strenuous effort, imparting now and then a note of greater intimacy to the conversation. Gregory remained silent though restless. After they had finished their coffee, they glanced at some of the tapestries and Sir Bertram led the way towards the chapel. They passed through the smaller library which Henry claimed as his own.
“This is my little sanctum,” he announced. “My brother leaves most matters connected with the estate in my charge, and this is where I deal with them before they pass on to Mr. Borroughes.”
The visitor looked curiously around the lofty but somewhat severe apartment, with its neatly arranged shelves of catalogues, its piles of volumes of reference, its letter cases and many evidences of business detail. An exceptionally large writing table filled the window recess, on which stood a single bronze statue, several curios, a blotter and a massive stationery rack. On the right-hand side the window panelling took a wide, inward sweep, leaving a space, half platform, half pedestal. In the centre stood a fine china bowl, filled with deep red roses; on either side—the Body and the Soul.
Mr. Johnson gazed first at one of the Images, then at the other, speechless, expressionless, but absorbed. All the cynical vice and grotesque wickedness of the one leered at him from the left-hand side of those drooping roses; from the right the kindly benevolent face of a saint seemed to breathe out a strange atmosphere of peace and sanctity. Mr. Johnson made no comment, attempted no criticism, yet his very silence was in its way suggestive.