“I shall be very happy to see your collection,” Endacott assented. “I know little about pictures; something, perhaps, of china.”
“My brother Henry is our showman,” Sir Bertram observed. “He gives the whole of his time to the care of our treasures. By-the-by, my sister—Lady Annistair—will be here on Sunday afternoon. You will, perhaps, bring your niece to tea. It would be a good opportunity for a preliminary inspection.”
Endacott accepted without enthusiasm, but with a certain measured politeness, which was as far as he ever progressed towards geniality. Gregory escorted the departing guests to the already wide-flung hall door. Claire made a little grimace at him, as they dropped behind for a moment.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “Perhaps he’ll change his mind.”
“In any case,” he answered softly, “thank you for being sorry.”
He walked out with them into the scented twilight and Claire waved him another little farewell as they rolled off in the hired car. When he returned to the library he found his father and his uncle both standing before the Image. They turned at the sound of his approaching footsteps. There was something a little suggestive in their unnatural silence.
“Pleasant fellow, your friend Endacott!” the former remarked easily.
“It is much to be hoped,” Henry Ballaston said, in a low tone, “that he will not persist in his present most unreasonable attitude.”
CHAPTER IV
Sir Bertram, very lithe and debonair in his grey flannels and Panama hat, issued from his front door, whistled to dogs who seemed to come to him from all directions, and, humming snatches of music from an almost forgotten Italian opera, stepped down from the terrace and strolled across the park, keeping as far as possible in the shade of the great oak trees. Arrived at the boundary he vaulted over the stile, exchanged greetings right and left as he passed down the village street, and, turning along the lane to the right, pushed open the gate of the Little House and knocked at the door with his ash stick. At a word of command, the dogs settled down to watch wistfully for the end of their vigil, and Sir Bertram, admitted by an elderly and ungracious-looking domestic, entered the little hall, where he laid his hat and stick upon an oak chest, and afterwards passed into the long, low room, the door of which the maid had opened. A woman lying upon a couch held out both her hands; long, beautiful hands, ringless and almost transparently white. He raised them to his lips and drew a chair to her side.