After dinner they entered upon a general and informal exploration of the house, of the great picture gallery with its shining oak floor and its circular carved balustrade, leading down to the hall below, the Victorian drawing-room, its colourings quaintly sweet by the light of the lamps, its perfume a fragrant mixture of lavender and potpourri, curiously reminiscent of brocaded gowns, hooped skirts and vinaigrettes. They looked into the powdering closet on their way out and lingered for a few minutes on the south terrace, from which stretched a moonlit panorama of Italian gardens with tall cypresses, broad walks leading down to the lake. Claire became almost silent. She and Gregory had drifted a little apart from the others.
“At least,” she murmured sympathetically, “I realise now how terrible the very thought of parting with your home must be.”
“It has been ours since 1380,” he told her. “Uncle Henry could tell you the exact date and the name and record of every Ballaston since. I can’t pretend that my memory is as good. I never had much head for detail, but we are all alike in our love for the place.”
“I know I am very ignorant,” she said, a little hesitatingly, “but your pictures—the Gainsboroughs and Corots and Romneys, and all those treasures too—surely they must be worth a great deal—a very great deal of money.”
“They are all heirlooms,” he explained, “just as the land is entailed. They belong to us as Ballastons only. We could not sell a single picture. I don’t know why I should tell you all this,” he went on, “except that just now and then you seem to think that I was only an ordinary fortune hunter. I wasn’t, you know, really. I went to China to try to get the money to keep us going. It may have been the wrong way, but it was the only way I was any good at. We haven’t the instincts, any of us, for making money by legitimate methods.”
“You should do like so many young Englishmen,” she suggested. “Come over to the States and marry one of our millionairesses.”
He made a little grimace.
“We all, even the worst of us, have our code,” he reflected. “Personally, I would sooner rob a man. Besides——”
She turned towards the open windows through which was an impression of the faded but stately drawing-room, fine davenports and costly china, with little pools of shaded light falling upon stretches of carpet delicately blue, though threadbare in places.
“I think we had better go inside,” she said, with sudden decision.