“It is your mother?” she whispered.
He nodded.
“I’m not great at genealogy,” he said, “but I can go as far back as that. She was by way of being a great lady, the daughter of the Duke of Warminster.”
“You were an only son,” she said softly. “She must have been very fond of you.”
“Customary thing, I suppose,” he remarked. “Lucky for her, under the circumstances, that she died young.”
He closed the oaken door in front of the picture, and locked it.
“I should like to see the armory,” he said; “but I really forget—let me see, it is at the end of the long gallery, isn’t it?”
She led him there without a word. She was getting a little afraid of him. They inspected the library and wandered back into the picture gallery. It was she, now, who was silent. She had shown him all her favorite treasures without being able to evoke a single spark of enthusiasm.
“Once,” she remarked, “we all had a terrible fright. We were told that everything was going to be sold.”
He nodded.