“My dear Gerald!” he exclaimed reprovingly. “You would leave us so abruptly? Before your sister, too! What will Mr. Hamel think of our country ways? Pray resume your seat.”
For a moment the boy stood quite still, then he slowly subsided into his chair. Mr. Fentolin passed around a decanter of wine which had been placed upon the table by the butler. The servants had now left the room.
“You must excuse my nephew, if you please, Mr. Hamel,” he begged. “Gerald has a boy’s curious aversion to praise in any form. I am looking forward to hearing your verdict upon my port. The collection of wine and pictures was a hobby of my grandfather’s, for which we, his descendants, can never be sufficiently grateful.”
Hamel praised his wine, as indeed he had every reason to, but for a few moments the smooth conversation of his host fell upon deaf ears. He looked from the boy’s face, pale and wrinkled as though with some sort of suppressed pain, to the girl’s still, stony expression. This was indeed a house of mysteries! There was something here incomprehensible, some thing about the relations of these three and their knowledge of one another, utterly baffling. It was the queerest household, surely, into which any stranger had ever been precipitated.
“The planting of trees and the laying down of port are two virtues in our ancestors which have never been properly appreciated,” Mr. Fentolin continued. “Let us, at any rate, free ourselves from the reproach of ingratitude so far as regards my grandfather—Gerald Fentolin—to whom I believe we are indebted for this wine. We will drink—”
Mr. Fentolin broke off in the middle of his sentence. The august calm of the great house had been suddenly broken. From up-stairs came the tumult of raised voices, the slamming of a door, the falling of something heavy upon the floor. Mr. Fentolin listened with a grim change in his expression. His smile had departed, his lower lip was thrust out, his eyebrows met. He raised the little whistle which hung from his chain. At that moment, however, the door was opened. Doctor Sarson appeared.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Fentolin,” he said, “but our patient is becoming a little difficult. The concussion has left him, as I feared it might, in a state of nervous excitability. He insists upon an interview with you.”
Mr. Fentolin backed his little chair from the table. The doctor came over and laid his hand upon the handle.
“You will, I am sure, excuse me for a few moments, Mr. Hamel,” his host begged. “My niece and nephew will do their best to entertain you. Now, Sarson, I am ready.”
Mr. Fentolin glided across the dim, empty spaces of the splendid apartment, followed by the doctor; a ghostly little procession it seemed. The door was closed behind them. For a few moments a curious silence ensued. Gerald remained tense and apparently suffering from some sort of suppressed emotion. Esther for the first time moved in her place. She leaned towards Hamel. Her lips were slowly parted, her eyes sought the door as though in terror. Her voice, although save for themselves there was no one else in the whole of that great apartment, had sunk to the lowest of whispers.