“Ah, well, I shall see her tomorrow,” he thought, taking heart again as soon as he was out of his father’s presence.
VI
MR. RAYCIE stood silent for a long time after making the round of the room in the Canal Street house where the unpacked pictures had been set out.
He had driven to town alone with Lewis, sternly rebuffing his daughters’ timid hints, and Mrs. Raycie’s mute but visible yearning to accompany him. Though the gout was over he was still weak and irritable, and Mrs. Raycie, fluttered at the thought of “crossing him,” had swept the girls away at his first frown.
Lewis’s hopes rose as he followed his parent’s limping progress. The pictures, though standing on chairs and tables, and set clumsily askew to catch the light, bloomed out of the half-dusk of the empty house with a new and persuasive beauty. Ah, how right he had been—how inevitable that his father should own it!
Mr. Raycie halted in the middle of the room. He was still silent, and his face, so quick to frown and glare, wore the calm, almost expressionless look known to Lewis as the mask of inward perplexity. “Oh, of course it will take a little time,” the son thought, tingling with the eagerness of youth.
At last, Mr. Raycie woke the echoes by clearing his throat; but the voice which issued from it was as inexpressive as his face. “It is singular,” he said, “how little the best copies of the Old Masters resemble the originals. For these are Originals?” he questioned, suddenly swinging about on Lewis.
“Oh, absolutely, sir! Besides—” The young man was about to add: “No one would ever have taken the trouble to copy them”—but hastily checked himself.
“Besides——?”
“I meant, I had the most competent advice obtainable.”